Reflections
by Marg Hammerman
Summary: Michael Westen is prepared for everything—until he isn't. And Fiona Glenanne never worries—until she does. Michael has nearly recovered from the bullet Jesse sent through his chest to save him. But there's no rest for the weary as a thoroughly unexpected ambush forces Michael and Fiona to revisit what almost was—and could be again. Set during Season 4, after "Eyes Open."
1. Prologue

**Title:** Reflections

 **Summary:** Michael Westen is prepared for everything—until he isn't. And Fiona Glenanne never worries—until she does. Michael has nearly recovered from the bullet Jesse sent through his chest to save him. But there's no rest for the weary as a thoroughly unexpected ambush forces Michael and Fiona to revisit what almost was—and could be again. Set during Season 4, after "Eyes Open."

 **Author's Notes:** As is says in the summary, this story is set midway through Season 4 of _Burn Notice_ , a few weeks after Jesse shoots Michael. I'm proposing there's a time gap between episodes in there somewhere; I mean, I know _Burn Notice_ operates on action movie logic (and I love that about it!), but they really glossed over Michael's healing process. This story stretches it out a little bit for the sake of drama (or feels, if you prefer ;)). There's some hurt/comfort, but also some action and (hopefully) some humour.

Review if you like! But most of all—enjoy! :)

Disclaimer #1: I definitely don't own Burn Notice, or profit (in a financial sense) from fantasizing about it.

Disclaimer #2: My characters always practice safe, consensual sex.

 **Prologue**

 _ **Three weeks ago...**_

Fiona leaned forward on her knees and ran her fingers over her knuckles. She blinked slowly, acknowledging and denying her bone-deep exhaustion. The only sound was the gentle rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor and the dull hum of machinery. The only movement was the slow drip of the iv into the body of the man she loved.

It was the third day, now, that Michael had been unresponsive. Fiona wasn't prone to worry. She'd survived enough explosions and armed standoffs to be philosophical about death. Fiona knew you couldn't cheat death; you could just be a better shot than the next guy, and hope for the best. Fiona wasn't scared of dying; but she was worried about the possibility of living in a world that no longer featured the sometimes infuriating charms of Michael Westen.

Unconscious people were supposed to look peaceful, she thought, and maybe some did. But not Michael. There was no flicker of dreams on his eyelids, and his breathing was shallow rather than restful.

As the days piled up, Michael's familiar features seemed increasingly uncanny to Fiona's sleep-deprived eyes. More than once, she'd had to forcibly remind herself that it was, in fact, Michael's real body lying so still and lifeless in the crisp white hospital bed. Too often, she'd look down at Michael's face and think it looked like nothing so much as a plastic mask—a pale, insulting imitation of a living person.

Sometimes, Fiona prayed to gods she didn't believe in for the deep, beautiful pout of Michael's lips to depress or curve in a smile or a grimace of pain—anything to let her know that Michael was still in there, still trying to make his way back to the light. Other times, she sat or stood next to Michael's deathly still body and tried to make her peace. This always made her angry rather than peaceful. Between herself and Michael, there were too many unanswered questions, too many unresolved arguments; peace was impossible without some measure of violence, but she couldn't kick his ass if he didn't wake up.

Each hour was an exercise in bored tension. In a way, waiting for Michael to wake up was a lot like waiting in a sniper's perch. The longer you waited, the more the life-or-death tension of the situation became boring—domesticated into dull familiarity.

Since yesterday, when Michael had finally started breathing on his own, Fiona had watched and counted the tiny breaths that barely trembled his dry, slightly parted lips. Again and again, she'd count to a thousand and more, until she lost count. And then she'd start again, counting one breath… Two… Three… Four… She was so desperate for something to happen that she almost hoped the breaths would stop. Then she'd hate herself for thinking it, and start counting again. One breath… Two… Three… Four…

When she was alone at his bedside, Fiona would sometimes touch him. Standing over the hospital bed, she'd reach down and touch Michael's cheekbone, her index finger feeling the shallow indent of the scars around his left eye. Other times, she'd sit and touch his hand, running her fingers over the veins on the back and tracing patterns in his palm. Then she'd squeeze his hand. She'd squeeze gently at first, and then harder, then as hard as she could—with anger, followed by a growing desperation. Finally, she'd drop his hand and bury her face in her own hands, all her anger redirected toward herself.

Fiona hadn't left the hospital once. She was surprised and grateful that Sam hadn't tried to force the issue. If he'd thought it a lost cause, he was right; Fiona had been sleeping the first time she'd lost Michael, and she was damned if she was going to be caught sleeping a second time.

Staying awake didn't stop the nightmares that constantly tickled the back of Fiona's mind. Even if Michael did wake up, there might be complications. Brain damage was a significant possibility; Michael might wake up with impaired mental or motor functions. For a man like Michael, so defined by his intellectual and physically vitality, any such impairment could be devastating. At the very least, it would make him a different man, and Fiona wasn't sure if Michael could handle that. In the fleeting moments that she was honest with herself, she wasn't sure if she could handle it, either.

Today, on the morning of the third day, the sun was streaming into the room through the picture windows overlooking the bay. Somehow, the sunlight made Michael's already mask-like features seem even more lifeless; it accentuated the brutal contrast between inside and out, between the cold room and the warm world that continued on, carelessly, without them.

The scene was so similar—too similar—to the first time Fiona had seen Michael in Miami, passed out on a set of blood and sweat-stained sheets in a too-bright motel room. Then, too, she'd watched and counted his shallow breaths, wondering if each would be his last, and needing, more than she'd ever needed anything in her whole life, for him to wake up.

As much now as then, she hated herself for needing any man, and especially this man, so very badly. Her head told her—screamed at her—that Michael Westen wasn't worth it. He'd left her once, and would probably do so again; like the first time, it would be for a good reason, and this would make his leaving hurt even more.

But Fiona's heart screamed back that her head was wrong. And Fiona Glenanne was a woman who followed her heart—no matter the cost.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

 _ **Now...**_

Michael's fingers contracted around the empty pillow a moment before his eyes shot open into too much sunshine. He stared for a several bleary seconds at his momentarily unfamiliar surroundings. Then he let out a breath, and rubbed his eyes. He was at the loft—he was home.

He immediately knew it was late, much later than he'd planned to sleep. As he rolled out of bed, he collected his Sig Sauer from its customary spot under his pillow. The gun's familiar, hard shell grounded and soothed his dream-rattled nerves as he began his customary morning inspection of the premises. It was those damn painkillers, he thought. He never should have taken them the night before. A few years ago, he never would have made that mistake; a few years ago, he wouldn't have let down his guard, even for a night.

 _A few years ago, I was a few years younger…_

The thought sprang unbidden to his mind, and was silenced quickly; Sam and Fiona knew it was his birthday the following week, but he was fairly certain only his mother and Nate knew it was his 43rd birthday.

Michael angled his body out of sight as he approached each window and did a careful scan of each visible horizon before checking the locks on the front door and the door to the balcony.

Finally satisfied that everything was in order, he padded over to the fridge. On the way, he experimentally stretched his left shoulder. It felt stiff, but operable. In the past week, his bullet wound had evolved from a constant, burning pain across his entire chest and back into a throbbing tone buried deep in the muscle tissue. In the morning, the tone was light enough that he barely noticed it. But it would build throughout the day. By afternoon, a pulse of pain would start to run down his arm and into his fingers; by evening, this pulse would climb into his neck and head.

Michael dropped his Sig on the slatted wooden bar that served as his kitchen table. Wrenching open the heavy door of the ancient fridge, he saw that, besides two bottles of MGD and a jar of mustard well passed its "best before" date, the fridge was empty.

He closed the door and leaned back against the kitchen cabinets. It slowly dawned on his foggy brain that he and Fiona had eaten the last two yogurts the night before. This realization was followed by a visceral rush of memory. His empty stomach growled as he remembered Fiona's slow, deliberate tongue caressing every inch of her spoon, posing a wordless question that he'd pretended not to hear.

In his heart and elsewhere, Michael had very much wanted Fiona to stay the night. But the throbbing in his chest and head had dissuaded him. As a rule, he tried not to spend time with Fiona when he didn't think he could completely trust himself. And the night before had been one of those times.

Since he'd first met her, when she'd accepted his dance invitation by pressing a snub nosed revolver into his midsection, Fiona had had the unique ability to make him feel at once totally safe and completely vulnerable. Before she even knew his real name, Fiona had trusted him. For years and across three continents, she'd looked after him, even when he had no right to expect it—like two and a half years ago, when he'd been marooned in a dingy Miami motel room with no money, no friends, and several broken ribs. Even the beer bottle she'd thrown at his chest when she'd discovered his real identity could be read as a sign of devotion. No woman had ever been so willing to fight for him—even if it meant fighting _with_ him.

And yet, Fiona could also unnerve him to the depths of his soul. Sometimes, he was afraid of losing himself in her. Other times, he was more afraid of finding himself, terrified that he'd wake one morning in her arms and realize that the rest of his life was a worthless sham.

His biggest fear, though, the one that kept him up at night and haunted his dreams, concerned the things he knew he'd do to protect her. More than once and increasingly often in recent months, Michael had been caught in the throes of passion, pressing a wet, helpless moan into Fiona's taut breasts, and known, somewhere deep inside himself, that there was nothing he wouldn't do to keep her safe. Since returning to Miami, he'd already killed one man to confirm that pledge; he suspected it wouldn't be the last time.

As if on cue, Michael heard the gate rattle, followed by the familiar sound of Fiona's Hyundai Genesis in the driveway. Fiona's car was easy to identify because it always ran a bit hot and heavy; this was partly due to Fiona's driving, and partly because her car was always filled with more hidden guns and explosives than Michael truly wanted to know about.

He opened the door to greet her just as her platform heel espadrilles mounted the final two metal stairs. She was wearing a short-sleeved, washed silk shirtdress in a nude colour that somehow both matched and complimented her glowing tan. The dress was vaguely see-through and clung to the contours of her body in several well-selected places. Her auburn hair was loose and wavy, bouncing against her cheeks and shoulders.

"This is a nice gesture," she remarked. "Are you apologizing for something, or do you need a favour?"

"Good morning to you, too."

She gave him a deliberate once over as she slipped past him into the loft; her silk sleeve and the edges of her hair tickled his bare chest, while her eyes lingered on it.

"Did you just wake up?"

"I slept in," he said, closing the door after her and following her toward the kitchen. "Not on purpose."

Her step slowed, as she turned halfway. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he assured her. "Just a bit stiff."

"Hmmm…" Fiona's concern morphed into a playful, close-lipped smile as she popped up onto one of the bar stools. "That's an interesting turn of phrase."

Michael rolled his eyes to cover the flicker of heat that danced across his skin. He would never openly admit it, but he always got a charge out of knowing Fiona wanted him. It was especially flattering to know that she wanted him so recently after watching nurses change his bedpan.

Michael told himself he wasn't counting, yet somehow he knew that, including the week he'd spent in the hospital and the five days afterwards that he'd spent at his mother's house, they hadn't had sex for three weeks and four days. Since being reunited in Miami, lengthy periods without sex weren't unusual for them. Yet nothing had been usual about the past few weeks. Michael had never been shot in the chest before, and Fiona had never been there to witness it.

In the shower and late at night, Michael had been dwelling on one particular post-bullet encounter. Fiona had driven him home from the police station, where he'd been held for questioning in the Dennis Barfield affair. By the time they'd reached his mother's house, he'd been without sleep and painkillers for nearly twenty-four hours; Fiona had also been exhausted and emotionally drained, having lost her new home to an explosion mere hours before. In the bathroom of the house he'd grown up in, Fiona had helped him undress and wash the worst of the sweat and grime off his body. Every part of him had ached, but that hadn't stopped him from getting hard when her hands passed over his glutes and inner thighs. He'd been alert enough to be faintly embarrassed, but Fiona hadn't wavered. Standing behind him with her lips brushing his shoulder, she'd wordlessly slid down his boxers, and tenderly washed his erection with the warm, damp cloth. He hadn't come, his exhaustion making quick work of his momentary arousal. But it didn't matter. Or maybe, it was part of the point. What stayed with him from the encounter was the familiar, fearless surety of Fiona's touch. He'd never had, and knew he never would have, anyone else touch him that way—with a tender sensuality so confident and unashamed.

Since waking up in the hospital, Michael had been feeling even more conflicted than usual about his relationship with Fiona. Several times, he'd consciously and deliberately rebuffed her advances. Just as many times, he'd woken with a start and looked for her, experiencing a brief but intense moment of panic at her absence. Each time, he'd shrugged off the panic. It was inevitable, he knew, not the be affected in some way by a near-death experience. No one ever really recovers from almost dying; if you're lucky, you just learn to live with it, becoming so familiar with the fear that it becomes a normal, indispensable part of you—like a scar from a bullet shot by a friend, or from a beer bottle thrown by a lover.

Michael rested his forearms on the table next to Fiona, holding his bare shoulder mere inches from hers. She smelled like coconut oil and lemon, with just a hint of gunpowder. (He might have been imagining the gunpowder, but he didn't think so.)

"Would you tell me if you weren't fine?" she asked.

"Maybe."

"Honesty about your dishonesty—I suppose that's progress."

"Why are you here, Fi?"

"Do I need a reason, now, to visit you?"

"You know what I mean."

"How was your night?"

"I've had better," he admitted.

"I could have stayed, you know."

"I know."

Fiona searched his face for a long moment. He knew she was looking for more, but he had nothing to offer. Finally, she turned to admire the kitchen cabinets.

"So… what are your plans for the day?" she asked lightly.

"First I gotta work out, then I'm gonna have a shower, then I'll probably go out for some yogurt…"

"No leads? No jobs?"

"I'm waiting on a few things, but nothing definite."

"So what you're saying is, you're basically free?"

"Not—"

"Because I thought we could grab lunch."

Michael's brain automatically began flipping through a bevy of excuses.

"How about dinner?" he said at last.

"You're buying."

"That's fine."

Fiona turned to him again, her face brightening into the type of smile he knew he didn't give her nearly enough opportunities to use.

"Good," she said. "Pick you up at 8?"

"Sure."

She smiled again, slightly more nervously, before dropping off her stool. As always, her small feet and tall shoes made impossibly quick work of the room. Michael admired the movement of her body inside her dress, appreciating, especially, the liquid motion of her lithe, powerful legs.

"Dress nice," she tossed back over her shoulder.

"Of course."

When the heavy steel door thudded closed behind her, Michael let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. His body felt warm, his head muddled—the typical Fiona effect. He was used to it, but that meant it was also a part of him. And once something is a part of you, trying to excise it is as likely to kill you as save you.

Michael went to the sink and poured himself a tall glass of water. Then he went to his workout bench to do something useful with his adrenaline.

* * *

 _A/N: The reference to Fiona throwing a beer bottle at Michael is intended as a tribute to the incredibly wonderful, fabulously detailed storyverse of Jedi's Pal, which helped motive me to write for BN and continues to inspire :)_


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Fiona pulled up to the loft at 7:47 pm. She harboured a faint hope that arriving early might catch Michael off-guard, but the hope was just that—faint. Michael Westen was a boy scout—always dutiful, and always prepared.

She got out of the car and paused for a moment, wondering how many times she'd climbed the rusty steel stairs to the loft's bomb-warped door. After two-and-a-half years in Miami, she was starting to experience something very unfamiliar: the joy of routine. It was a loose routine, admittedly. Fiona was careful never to visit the same coffee shop at the same time on the same day of the week, or take her clothes to the same dry cleaner more than once. She never visited Michael at the same time, either. It wasn't the time or even the nature of the visits, but rather the visits themselves that were becoming routine. She was becoming so used to Michael being around that she sometimes worried how she'd react when he inevitably left. And she had no doubt that he would leave; to want Michael Westen to be predictable, to stay in one place or commit to anything that wasn't the CIA, was to want him to be someone else.

Sometimes, it was easy to remember not to get too comfortable with her current life; this included days when found herself soaked in Michael's blood or spattered with debris from the bombed-out wreckage of her home. Other times, it was harder to remember; this included days when she helped Sam, Jesse, and Michael take the good fight to the bad guys, and the nights she spent gripping Michael's naked body between her thighs.

Both work and sex had been scarce of late. It had been an unprecedented six whole days since they'd done a job, or made any real progress on the ongoing saga of Michael's burn notice. And during that time, Michael had barely let her touch him, let alone touched her back. Those combined deprivations were making Fiona tense, irritable, and desperate to shoot something. She was sick of begging for Michael's attention, but was also too disturbed by the recent shock of almost losing him to be as angry as she wanted to be. Her conflicted emotions produced a bored tension that was entirely too reminiscent of the hospital; in a way, it was starting to feel as though Michael had never woken up at all.

Fiona knew she shouldn't be surprised by Michael's behaviour. She'd learned from experience that their reactions to nearly dying could be as different as their reactions to violence. When it was good—when it was retributive and skilled and beautiful—violence was one of Fiona's favourite aphrodisiacs. Near-death experiences were even better. Nothing made her want to fuck someone's brains out more than nearly dying; for Fiona, sex the best way to protest death, and to celebrate cheating it.

Michael had once told her that violence wasn't a turn on for him. Fiona didn't believe him, but she was sure it was something he wanted to believe. Michael's passions were rigidly controlled. Fiona could count on one hand the number of times he'd expressed affection or desire in public; even in front of Sam and Jesse, any small touches or gestures of tenderness were generally forbidden.

Michael McBride had been shockingly different. McBride had been free and easy with his passions. McBride had kissed her in public—danced with her, even. McBride had had rough sex with her against the side of a barn and in the back seat of a car parked in an alley just a few blocks away from a still-smouldering car bomb. Michael Westen didn't seem willing or able to do any of those things.

Yet in selective, private moments, Michael Westen could be just as sensual as McBride had been. Michael Westen was more diligent and thorough with his hands and mouth than any man Fiona has ever been with, though there was also a sense of urgency to his diligence. When Michael finally decided to surrender, it was as though all the effort he usually spent trying not to be touched was redirected into a desperate need to touch and be touched. Virtually every sexual encounter had a sense of drama and finality to it; perhaps because Michael allowed himself so few escapes, so few moments of vulnerability, the moments that he did allow were magnified and hyper-intense, like he was always either saying goodbye or making up for lost time.

Fiona sympathized with Michael's regulation of his passions; on some level, she even admired it. Most of the time, though, it hurt and angered her. The change that sometimes came over Michael after sex, when he'd turn so quickly from a man desperate for her touch to a man untouchable, broke her heart every time it happened. Seeing that change almost become more painful over time. Every week that she fought, worked, and slept at Michael's side, Fiona hungered for more and longer moments of intimacy. So far, though, it hadn't happened, and she was starting to wonder if it every would.

Refocusing on the present, Fiona took a breath, and sent her strappy stiletto Louboutins on a treacherous journey through the gravel-strewn driveway and up the slatted stairs. One of the straps kept pinching the baby toe on her left foot, but the pain felt good; it was real, and steadying—more real than the label on her shoes, though not quite as steadying as the Beretta concealed in her black Fendi snakeskin clutch (another fake, but a damn good one).

When she entered the loft, Michael was standing in front of the full-length mirror that hung from the black cage around the staircase; next to him, a floor lamp was providing most of the large room's dull illumination. He was wearing clean black oxfords, a pair of nicely fitting grey suit pants, and a glowingly white undershirt. He didn't look up as he greeted her.

"Hey, Fi."

Fiona closed the door behind her and took a moment to admire him. Michael's handsomeness was both obvious and deceptive. At first glance, he had a sort of generic attractiveness—the kind of all-American good looks characteristic of Gap ads and network television. But that veneer was spoiled in the details. Those details included Michael's occasional indulgence in luxuries, like expensive British shaving soap, Italian silk socks, and his current grey Armani suit. It also included his many scars—some obvious, others less so. She'd had a hand, she knew, in some of those scars, as he'd had a hand in her own. Michael's face, too, was a study in contradictions. His practiced impassivity could never fully conceal an underlying boyishness, his rare, genuine smile hinting at a joyful innocence that had inexplicably survived the life he'd led.

Fiona made a production of crossing the room, taking large, curvaceous strides in her long, black jersey dress.

In response, Michael glanced at her reflection in the mirror.

"You look beautiful, Fi," he told her honestly. He re-focused quickly on his own image, lifting an also-glowingly-white button down shirt off a hanger by the mirror.

"Not so bad yourself," Fiona returned, stopping at arms length to make a show of her admiration. "Feels like weeks since I've seen you in anything but jeans and polos."

"Or a hospital gown."

"Well, now, those aren't so bad. They have holes in all the right places."

Their eyes met in the mirror, Michael acknowledging her playful smile with his own knowing smirk.

Encouraged by Michael's reaction to her innuendo, Fiona moved to stand behind him, just close enough to let him feel her body heat. He smelled good—like sandalwood with a small, sharp tinge of mint.

Watching in the mirror as he buttoned his shirt, she found herself marvelling at his meticulousness—at the perfect creases in his clothes and the perfect polish of his shoes. McBride had never worn a suit. When she'd known him, Fiona would have said McBride was incapable of using an iron, let alone cleaning a pair of oxfords. McBride had been most at home in flannel shirts, wool sweaters, work boots, and faded blue jeans—a set of items that had routinely found themselves strewn across the floor of her cold, cramped Dublin flat.

Fiona knew the difference between Michael McBride and Michael Westen sometimes frustrated Michael nearly as much as it did her. Michael was always more comfortable playing characters than being himself, thinking of relationships as missions and people as assets.

She regretted the thought immediately. Michael wasn't truly as callous as she sometimes accused him of being. Sometimes, she even suspected him of being jealous of McBride, wishing he could be the man he thought she really wanted, while knowing he never really could.

Truthfully, Fiona didn't want a return of McBride. She wasn't, after all, the same person she'd been when she'd first met and fallen in love with Michael's cover ID. Ten years ago, she'd been a bank robber and aspiring arms dealer out for revenge, wearing shaggy bangs and her own soft jeans and baggy sweaters. Now, she was something else. She wasn't sure, yet, what that something else was. But she was figuring it out, with Michael Westen by her side.

Michael reached for his jacket, and Fiona stepped back just enough to allow him to slip it on. She watched in the mirror as he jerked down his cuffs and smoothed the jacket's crisp lapels against his chest. Her skin itched as she battled an irrational jealousy of Michael's hands.

Before she could think twice, she slipped her own hand inside Michael's jacket, feeling the firm contours of his midsection under his clothes. Michael twitched at her touch.

"Ticklish?" she teased.

"Just distracted," he said. "Sorry."

Reluctantly, Fiona started to take her hand away. She'd had plenty of time over the past two and a half years to learn Michael Westen's moods; "distracted" was usually shorthand for "not now," and a firm "not now" was rarely negotiable—except under extreme circumstances, the kind that often led to uncomfortable mornings.

This time, though, Michael's body belied his words; he caught Fiona's hand in his, stopping her from drawing away.

"It's okay," he assured her.

He lifted his hand from hers and used it to do up the second-to-last button of his shirt. Then he waited, inviting her to make her move. Fiona didn't need to be asked twice; her fingers walked quickly up his midsection and over his chest, nimbly flicking the button back open.

Standing on faux-Louboutin tiptoes, she dipped her chin over Michael's shoulder, meeting his eyes in the mirror while she fingered the groove of his chest where she'd exposed it.

"We could skip dinner," she offered.

Michael didn't say anything; in the mirror, his eyes held an ambiguous, faraway look. Fiona tossed her clutch toward the bed, choosing to interpret his silence as another invitation. She let her lips brush Michael's neck as she undid another button, and then another. When she got to the bottom of his shirt, she spun to the front of his body and pushed it off his shoulders, along with his jacket. Shirt and jacket fell in a messy heap on the floor. Michael glanced quickly at the pile of clothes, obviously bothered by her cavalier treatment of a suit that had likely cost him a lot of effort, a lot of money, or both. But he didn't complain; instead, he stood perfectly still and quiet, breathing deeply under the hand she laid on his undershirt-clad chest.

Fiona didn't budge, willing Michael to break the tension.

For several long seconds, they were locked in a standoff.

Michael drew first.

All at once, he grabbed her waist and the back of her head and pushed her back against the mirror; the weight of his body pinned her there against the cool, smooth surface.

Fiona pursed her lips to hide her threatening smile. Her blood pumped in her veins as she flexed her body against his, testing his grip and his determination.

"I see this leading to seven years' bad luck," she quipped.

Michael's voice was low with passion as he replied, "I'll risk it."

He kissed her hard against the mirror, hands sweeping over her ribs and around her hips. Fiona wrestled for control of his lips and tongue and continued to push back against his tight grip, challenging him as she always did.

Michael responded to her challenge with an assault on her senses, lips sucking her neck and throat, hands molding her body. His mouth never left her skin as he peeled her dress off her shoulders, and her twisting hips helped it slide down her body in excruciating increments.

The next moments were a delicious, frenzied tangle of hands and mouths and clumsily discarded clothes. When they were finally standing naked in each other's arms, Michael spun her to face the mirror. He stood straight and confident behind her, fitting tight between her legs as he pressed wet kisses against her neck, shoulders, and spine, simultaneously massaging her breasts and stoking her wet clit.

It was thrilling to see Michael in all his glory, outlining her shape with his own. Part of her wanted to turn the tables, to take out his legs and force his surrender. That was how it usually went—because Michael often needed to be bullied into sex, and because Fiona liked being in charge. Being in charge was only fun, though, when the opponent was worthy—when they were able and willing to wrestle for control. Which was why she also loved to feel Michael exercise his power—to focus all his strength and skill on her body as he surrendered in a different way, to his own aggressive passion.

In the mirror, Fiona watched Michael's hands worship her curves, something deep in her chest and the pit of her stomach both coming undone and completed at the sight of his right hand tweaking her nipples, the fingers of his other hand disappearing inside her.

"You belong here," Michael whispered against her ear. "Right here."

She inhaled sharply, shocked by the directness that was so unlike Michael Westen, and so like Michael McBride. She wanted to say something—anything—to acknowledge the moment, but was too overwhelmed by the things Michael was doing with his left hand. She had to reach back and steady herself against his body, grabbing fistfuls of his hard, beautiful hips and thighs.

Michael's right hand curved around her hips to her lower back, easing her forward. Then the same hand climbed back up her body, circling her face and tilting her chin up toward the mirror. Their eyes met in the glass, hers dark with desire, his almost unnaturally clear.

"I want you to watch," he said. "I want you to see how perfect you look."

Fiona's jaw dropped and then bent into a gasp of inarticulate, desperate pleasure as he pushed inside her. He kept one hand on her clit and the other on her hip, holding her steady as their bodies ground together. Fiona grabbed the edge of the mirror with both hands, for leverage and to keep herself from falling; her legs were like jelly, feet wobbling inside the stilettos she still wore.

In the mirror, she saw her smudged lips wrench themselves into strange new shapes, her firm nipples bouncing with the rhythm of her body pushing back against Michael's thrusts. Michael was right: she did look perfect. Michael's selective intimacy could be infuriating, but in moments like this, is was also intoxicating. Fiona started to come apart at the miracle of seeing and feeling the untouchable Michael Westen lose himself deep inside her body, knowing she'd done that to him, and that he'd let her.

She looked up to make sure Michael was seeing it, too—the perfection of their joined bodies. She was disappointed when she saw his eyes were closed. Yet his glorious expression of pleasure nearly made up for it. The sight of Michael's parted, pouting lips and flickering eyelids, his own hard nipples vibrating with the motion of their bodies, pushed her fully over the edge; she cried out Michael's name as she shuddered and and sank into a wave that nearly drowned her, numb hands scraping for purchase against the mirror and Michael's flesh.

For long minutes afterwards, Michael held her body upright against his own, his hands slowly memorizing her sweat-slick skin. Fiona's eyes roved over their reflection, adoring the sight of Michael wrapped tenderly but possessively around her naked, sated self. Michael's body was every bit as beautiful as it had been ten years ago. But it wasn't quite the same. A decade ago, Michael had been almost androgynously slim. Now, his slimness was overlaid with hard curves; his chest and shoulders were broader, his ass tauter.

Drunk on the sight, Fiona closed her eyes and concentrated on the feel, meditating to the strong and steady rhythm of Michael's heartbeat against her back.

Michael's simple, honest sex-talk made her long for more. For half-a-minute, she imagined telling him everything. She wanted to tell him that she loved him more than she'd ever truly loved McBride. She wanted to tell him that she didn't hate the CIA—she just hated what it had done to him, and to them. She wanted to tell him about the trip from the site of the car crash to the hospital—how she'd yelled at the paramedics and then hated herself for it afterwards. She wanted to tell him about how she'd let Sam hold her hand in the waiting room at the hospital, and about the way Madeline had looked at them—like she was both angry and guilty, blaming them and apologizing at the same time.

But when she opened her eyes, she hesitated. In the mirror, Michael's eyes were downcast, his face relaxed but weary. He looked almost sad, as though he was already anticipating letting her go.

"Michael…"

"Yeah…" he sighed against her, his breath ticking her earlobe. "It's been a long few weeks."

Suddenly desperate to lighten the mood, Fiona turned in his arms, forcing one of her playful smiles.

"So you've been keeping track," she teased.

"Of what?"

"Of when we last had sex."

Michael stared back at her blankly. " _That's_ your takeaway."

"Is it the wrong one?"

When Michael started to lean out of her embrace, she knew she'd missed her opportunity for honesty. She closed her eyes and swallowed back the tightness in her throat as Michael broke away, and started gathering up his clothes.

"Are you still hungry?" he asked innocently, bending down to collect his rumpled shirt and jacket.

Fiona paused, angry at the glimmer of hope that ignited her heart. She wanted to yell at him or kick him right in his taut, perfect ass. But instead she simply said, "I got here early, so we wouldn't be that late."

"You can use the bathroom to clean up. I'll be okay here."

"Give me three minutes," she said, scooping up her dress from its own wrinkled pile on the floor.

In two minutes and forty-five seconds, they were in the Charger and on their way downtown, both of them pretending the silence between them was comfortable rather than charged with unspoken hurt.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

It didn't take long for Michael to regret going through with their dinner date. Sitting across from Fiona in the romantic lighting of one of Miami's newest and trendiest Asian fusion restaurants, he had a wonderful vision of the night they might have had; this vision involved sharing takeout naked in his bed, eating quickly to get back to the more pressing business of additional reconnecting.

This vision had been formed and spoiled in the aftermath of their sexual escapades an hour before. Fiona was usually the instigator where sex was concerned. Tonight, though, she'd practically forced him take the lead. At first, it had felt good; he'd needed to feel that tonight, needed to feel confident and in control. But afterwards, when Fiona had teased him about counting the days since they last had sex, the words had hit like a slap. Intellectually, Michael knew the joke was a minor thing; at any other time, he would have let it slide, or even played along. But in the heat of the moment, he'd been stung by what felt like a betrayal of his honesty, and then become quickly embarrassed and angry at his own emotionality; the fact that he didn't understand his own reaction well enough to explain it to Fiona only made him angrier.

All of which had put him in the difficult position of both wanting and not wanting to remain in Fiona's presence. He'd reasoned that going through with their dinner date would be a suitable compromise, allowing him to be with her without the pressure, at least for the time being, of additional intimacy.

It turned out to be a very unhappy compromise. Michael, still preoccupied with his unresolved emotions and the desires he'd been denying for too long, now found himself trying—and failing—to enjoy what he assumed was a delicious plate of beef with lemongrass while scanning the faces of too many potential assailants in a room with too few exits.

As he mechanically moved the chopsticks from the plate to his mouth, Michael was especially interested in one particular couple, seated inside a shiny red booth across the room. The man was probably about Michael's age, but wore his years differently; his defining features were a ring of fat around his middle and a patch of thinning, dull-coloured hair. His female companion was an attractive but plain blonde woman about the same age, who was constantly smiling politely but unenthusiastically at his jokes. The couple had arrived a few minutes after Michael and Fiona, and had been eyeing them ever since. Three times now, Michael had caught the man scrutinizing him while pretending not to. And when the man wasn't looking at him, the woman was. On the surface, the couple seemed unlikely candidates to instigate an ambush, but Michael had been ambushed by less likely candidates in the past.

"Problem?"

Fiona's tone implied he'd been silent for too long.

"I don't know," Michael replied, tearing at least part of his attention away from the suspicious couple. "I hope not."

"Keep me posted."

Michael gave a small nod of ascent as he sipped his sake.

"I was thinking the other day," said Fiona, "that maybe we could make an online dating profile for your mom."

Michael coughed on his sake to avoid a spit-take. "You can't be serious."

"I'm totally serious," Fiona insisted. "Madeline needs companionship, Michael. If only to keep her from dwelling on your and Nate's problems."

"Let's see—my mother's likes include smoking and spying on the neighbors."

"That second point seems a _bit_ hypocritical."

"You know what I mean."

"Besides," he continued, "the last thing I need is someone using my mom to get to me."

"Well, that's true, I suppose," Fiona admitted.

They ate in silence for a moment, until Fiona, in typical Fiona fashion, made another attempt to breach his defences.

"So…" she began, "your birthday is next week."

"Unfortunately."

"You know, some people actually enjoy having birthdays."

"I'll take your word for it."

"So how old are you this year?"

Michael narrowed his eyes at the question. "You don't know?"

"I like to respect your privacy."

"Believe it or not," she added quickly.

Unable to resist baiting her, Michael asked, "How old do you think I am?"

Fiona's face brightened. "Oh, you couldn't be a _day_ over 29."

"Cute."

She paused, studying his face as though preparing for a more serious estimate.

"38," she said at last.

"Really?" Michael was pleased, despite himself, by the seeming sincerity of her guess.

"Higher or lower?"

" _Higher_."

"40. 41… 42…" Fiona's eyebrows and tone rose with each number. " _43_? You're turning _43_?!"

"A little louder, please. I'm pretty sure there are some line cooks who didn't hear you."

Fiona leaned back in her chair and sipped her own sake.

"You're flattered, admit it. That I thought you were in your 30s."

"You _actually_ thought I was younger than you?"

"Well, I don't have a lot to go on, do I? You don't like music, or movies—there are no cultural touchstones."

Michael was now certain that Fiona had been teasing him all along, but he did feel flattered—both that she'd cared enough to lie, and that she understood him well enough to know he'd want her to.

"I think you just like the idea of being older than me," he teased back.

Fiona leaned forward again, her hazel eyes glittering in the low light. "So I can boss you around?"

Their eyes locked across the table, Michael warming with a specific memory from several months before: Fiona pressing down hard on his chest as she rode him, so hard he was gasping for air, her wild hair flicking sweat across his face.

Michael finally broke the moment with a smile—his first legitimately genuine smile of the night.

They filled the rest of their meal with sparse but companionable chit chat, rediscovering the quiet comfort of each other's presence. When they'd finished both their meal and their sake, Michael paid the bill while Fiona visited the washroom. Michael waited for Fiona next to the bar under a string of colourful paper lanterns, a vantage point that gave him the best possible view of the suspicious couple in the booth. By now, he was sure he knew one or both of them from somewhere, but couldn't seem to pin down a specific time or place; the uncharacteristic memory lapse stoked his anxiety.

Michael pretended to study a take-out menu while the objects of his suspicion paid their own bill, and got up to leave. He expected them to move in the direction of the exit. But instead, the man looked straight at Michael, and started toward him, his dinner companion trailing behind. Michael slipped an empty rocks glass off the bar and hid it behind his back. He'd left his Sig Sauer behind in the Charger, depending on Fiona's Beretta in case of emergency.

When the man was a just a few feet away, he stopped. Michael's fingers flexed around the glass, preparing for the worst. Suddenly, the man's face lit up with a wide smile.

"Mike?" the man asked. "Mike _Westen_? It's me—Steve!"

"Uh…."

"Steve _Mercer_. From high school!"

Michael's hand loosened only slightly around the glass.

"Steve _Mercer_. Of _course_ —long time no-see."

Michael still wasn't quite sure if he remembered Steve Mercer, much of his teenage years being a self-imposed blur. But even if Steve was telling the truth, it didn't mean his presence wasn't a threat. Michael forced himself to smile while his eyes performed yet another scan of the room; several heads had perked up at Steve's enthusiastic greeting, but it was impossible to know if the interest was innocent.

"Mike Westen!" Steve exclaimed again. "Holy shit! I thought that was you. I heard you were back, but I didn't believe it. How the heck are you, man?"

"I'm getting by," Michael offered, his fingers spinning the glass behind his back.

"Well you _look_ like a million bucks. I swear, I've tried about every diet there is, but nothing seems to stick. What's you secret?"

"Yogurt," Michael deadpanned.

Steve paused for a moment, his booze-cloudy eyes blank with disbelief. Then he erupted with raucous laughter. The sound perked up even more heads, causing Michael's hand to tighten again around the glass.

"That's rich, man," said Steve, shaking his head as his laughter dissipated. "I gotta introduce you to my wife. Mike, this is Al—short for Alison. You might remember her too, actually—she was a couple years ahead of us in school."

Michael realized he did have a vague memory of Alison in an orange cheerleader outfit, leaning against a green locker and giving him the same suspicious side-eye she was giving him now.

"Nice to see you again," Michael offered, managing a rather strained version of his charm smile.

"And what do you do for a living, Michael?" Alison asked, suspicion colouring her tone as well as her eyes.

Michael thought that he might as well aggravate Alison's unease, in the hopes of ending the conversation sooner rather than later. "I'm actually between jobs at the moment."

"Weren't you in the army?" asked Steve. "I seem to remember you joining at the end of high school."

"Happy to serve," Michael said, still smiling.

"Are you lookin' for work here in Miami? 'Cause I'm in sales—pools and appliances mostly—and we're always looking for new reps. I'm sure I could hook you up with an interview, no problem."

"That's okay," Michael assured him. "I'm not really planning to stick around."

Steve laid a companionable, and thoroughly unwanted, hand on Michael's shoulder.

"Hey, that's your prerogative, man. But I gotta tell you, I think you're making a mistake. Miami's really turned it around since the crash. Downtown's revitalizing, and there are condos going up everywhere. You buy now, it's gonna be worth double in ten years—guaranteed. Al and I have been looking to invest while the going is good—at this point, we gotta start thinking retirement, you know? There are some really exciting things happening in North Miami…"

* * *

Fiona returned from the washroom to a truly unexpected sight: Michael deep in conversation with two people whom she didn't recognize, and who didn't look like gangsters, trained killers, or government agents. Yet the charm smile plastered on Michael's face was a giveaway that it wasn't a mutually enjoyable exchange of ideas. Preparing for the worst, Fiona squeezed the comforting shape of the Beretta inside her clutch.

She was still squeezing her clutch when she shimmied up beside Michael and flashed her own charm smile at his new friends.

"Well hello," she greeted brightly, extending her hand to the middle-aged man with the paunch and thinning hair. "I'm Fiona."

"Well hello to you, too," the man replied warmly. "Are you and Mike…?"

Fiona slipped an arm around Michael's waist, tucking her fingers into the pocket of his jacket; she could feel Michael's body tense at the gesture.

"Would you like to field that one, Michael?" she cooed.

Michael chose to ignore the question. "Fiona, this is Steve and Al—short for Alison."

"The three of us went to high school together," Steve told Fiona. "This guy right here—he was the ultimate badass."

"Is that right?" said Fiona, her smile becoming more genuine. "I would _love_ to hear _all_ about it."

"Now Fiona," Michael chastised, his own smile becoming more like gritted teeth. "I'm sure Steve and Alison have places to be."

"Not at all, man," Steve protested. "We gotta have a couple of drinks and catch up—my treat."

Steve was already signalling a waiter and starting to usher a reluctant Alison onto a bar stool when Michael turned his gaze on Fiona, willing her to feel the seriousness of his objection.

"Actually," said Fiona, "I just remembered that I've got an early start tomorrow. I'm going to need Michael to take me home for my beauty sleep."

Steve's face fell. "Aw, no, really? Just one drink before you go—for old times' sake."

"I know Michael would _love_ to," Fiona lied, "but I am an absolute _disaster_ without my seven hours. Another time?"

"Sure!" Steve enthused. "I know I've got a business card around here somewhere…"

"Don't worry." Fiona whipped out her own card from the interior pocket next to her Beretta. "Take mine."

"Don't mind if I do," said Steve, practically beaming. "Event planner, huh? That's an interesting business."

"There can be a few fireworks," Fiona agreed. "It was so nice to meet you both. Enjoy your evening."

Michael managed a final, mostly convincing smile before leading Fiona away. He let her keep her hand wrapped around his waist until they were safely outside; then he quickly and deliberately stepped out of her grasp. Fiona immediately felt the loss of his body, but she understood; besides Michael's usual rules about expressing affection in public, she knew the interaction with Steve and Alison had shaken him, as revisiting his past always did.

Fiona followed Michael's lead and kept a watchful eye on their surroundings as they made their way to the parking lot. No one seemed to be following them, or if there was, they were good enough to remain unseen.

"Well, that was exciting," Fiona said, trying to keep her voice light. "It's actually funny that doesn't happen more often."

"Part of why I hate being stuck here," said Michael. "Every public place is a security risk."

"Security risk? Michael—it's an old high school buddy. A buddy who works in _sales_."

"Maybe he does, and maybe he doesn't. Regardless, I don't like people shouting my name in crowded restaurants."

"I've always thought you should capitalize on your fame."

"To do what? Get arrested, or get killed?"

"You could write a book. One of those tell-alls. 'My Life as a Spy: Stealing Cars and Starting Fires.'"

"Anyway," she continued, disregarding Michael's look of reproach, "I'd be more worried about Steve's wife. She's the one who looked like she wanted to murder you."

" _Michael_!"

They both turned a bit too quickly in the direction of the female voice that echoed across the parking lot. Fiona's hand dove into her clutch, stopping just short of drawing her Beretta. She kept her finger close to the trigger when she saw Alison Mercer jogging toward them, her heels clattering on the concrete. Her husband was nowhere to be seen.

"Steve thinks I went to the bathroom," said Alison, panting as she joined them next to the Charger. "I don't have much time."

"Uh, hi," Michael greeted warily.

Swallowing back her breathlessness, Alison straightened and said in a clear, authoritative voice, "I need you to do something for me."

Fiona exchanged a glance with Michael, both of them affronted at being spoken to like employees.

"It's not really for me," Alison corrected, her voice softening. "It's for my son."

Michael shifted his weight from one foot to the other, avoiding Alison's eyes. "Listen, I'm not sure what you think I—"

"I don't know what you do," Alison interrupted brusquely. "Frankly, I don't care. But I've heard stories about you—about what you've been up to since you've been back in Miami."

"All good, I'm sure," Fiona muttered.

"What do you want, Alison?" asked Michael.

"Marc, my son—my oldest son, from my first marriage—he runs a garage. Parts and welding. The work is steady, but it's capped. He's only got two bays, and he doesn't have the capital to expand. In the past, it's been fine. There was always enough money for what mattered. But then his little girl—my granddaughter—got sick."

"I'm sorry," Michael offered. "But I'm not sure what that has to do with—"

"There are dozens of car theft rings in the city," Alison continued, "and they're always approaching shops like Marc's, flashing money around. In the past, Marc always said no. This one time, to help my granddaughter, he said yes. And now…" Alison's voice wavered and trailed off.

The story was starting to acquire a familiar ring.

"And now," Michael continued for her, "they want Marc to do more. And if he doesn't do it, they're going to go after his wife and daughter."

"Yes," Alison confirmed.

"Have you called the police?" Fiona asked.

"If I call the police, they'll arrest Marc. And maybe he deserves it. God knows he's made some bad choices. But his family needs him. His _daughter_ needs him. Steve doesn't know and he won't… He and Marc don't exactly get along."

"I don't have any money, if that's what you're asking," said Michael, knowing it wasn't what she was asking.

"I don't want your _money_ ," Alison spat back. "What I want is for you to get these guys to back off. I want you to make sure they know Marc's _not_ going to work for them. Not now, not ever again. _I_ will pay _you_ to get rid of them."

Fiona could see Michael's warring emotions playing out in his body language. He shifted his weight again, and scanned the horizon, looking, or perhaps hoping, for some evidence of a set-up.

"Look," said Alison, "I know I was a bitch to you in high school. You just… you _scared_ me, okay? You were always in some kind of trouble—always getting in a fight, or getting suspended, or showing up to school with bruises… and I didn't want your trouble to rub off on me. But Rico, Marc's father… He told me a story about you once. Rico was a nerd—he was into computers before people even realized computers were a thing. And there was this guy—this football guy, Trevor—who used to wait for him every day after school. I never saw it. I mean, I was a cheerleader, so I knew Trevor—went on a few dates with him, even. But I never noticed what was going on. No one did. Or maybe no one cared. But you did. Rico told me that one day, just out of the blue, you offered to walk home with him. And Trevor never bothered him again."

Fiona knew as soon as she heard it that it was a true story, just as she could tell that Michael's continued hesitancy was a lie—for Alison's benefit, but also for his own. Michael was trying to convince himself he was obeying his head rather than his heart, making a decision that was tactical rather than emotional.

"If it was just me," Alison began again, "I would never be asking for this. I haven't earned your help, and I get that. But this is my _son_ and my _granddaughter_. Do you have any idea what that's like? My most important job in life is _protecting_ them. And I would do anything, make a deal with anyone, to do that—to keep them safe."

This final invocation of Marc's child was the clincher. For someone who claimed to hate his own family and not want children of his own, Michael was oddly devoted to preserving the families of others.

"Fine," Michael said at last. "Meet me at the bar as the Biscayne Marriott, tomorrow at 2. You can give me all the details then."

Alison nodded once, and then turned abruptly, hurrying back to her clueless husband.

Fiona stared at Alison's retreating form. "Who walks up to you after they haven't seen you in twenty-five years, basically asks you to take out a gang leader to save her idiot son, and then doesn't even say _thank you_ when you say yes to the job?"

"Alison Mercer, apparently."

"What on earth did you _do_ to that woman?"

Michael shook his head. "Honestly, I really don't remember."

Fiona yanked open the passenger's side door of the Charger and dropped into the white leather seat, Michael joining her on the driver's side.

"Did you _sleep_ with her?" Fiona asked over the roar of the engine. She was vaguely revolted by the idea of a scrawny, fifteen-year-old Michael having horny teenaged sex in the back of Alison what's-her-name's parents' Cadillac.

"No," Michael refuted, definitively. "But I had a reputation."

"With the ladies?"

"More like with the police."

"Were you popular in high school?"

"What?"

"I said—"

"I heard you. I just didn't understand the question."

"What's to understand? Either you were popular, or you weren't."

Michael chose to change the subject. "Was that a real business card?"

"Of course not, Michael—what do you take me for?"

They drove in silence for a moment, Michael watching the road ahead, Fiona watching the lights of downtown Miami streaming by in the window.

"So does that settle things?" she asked at last.

"Hm?"

"Were Steve and Alison the 'problem' you saw earlier?"

"I hope so."

"What do you mean?"

"Just a feeling I got, when Steve said my name in the restaurant. It's probably nothing."

Now it was Fiona's turn to redirect the conversation. "You didn't answer my question from before."

"Which one?"

"I asked if you were popular in high school."

"No, I wasn't popular."

"Steve seemed practically in _awe_."

"I guess stealing cars and starting fires seems impressive to teenage boys."

"Don't I know it," she sighed. She was remembering her own teenage years, while also conjuring a skin-tingling image of a scrawny, fifteen-year-old Michael in acid-wash jeans and a white undershirt, tanned skin misted with sweat, mixing homemade explosives in his mother's garage. She even inserted herself into the scene, her gloved hands thrust deep into a cask of formaldehyde as she teased Michael's hormone-charged body with a pair of barely-there cut-offs.

"Were you popular in high school, Fi?"

"Maybe," she hinted.

"I'll bet your brothers loved that."

"They had very little say in the matter. Obviously."

"Do you ever wish you could go back?"

Fiona blinked, surprised by the unusually forward question.

"To high school, or to Ireland?"

"Either. Both."

"I miss Ireland, but it's more like the way you miss a memory. I'm not who I was when I belonged there."

Michael shifted into fifth as they turned onto Biscayne. Fiona watched the overhead lights bend and stretch across the black hood of the car.

"Did you ever miss Miami?" she asked. "After you left?"

"No," said Michael. "If the whole place stopped existing, I really wouldn't care."

Fiona glanced at his profile. "Do you really mean that?"

"I think you're underestimating how much I hated the years I lived here."

"It can't have been _all_ bad."

"It was close."

She turned her attention back to the window, staring out at the inky black bay.

"Did you ever feel guilty about leaving?"

Michael hesitated before responding. "I didn't feel bad until my last visit home, while my dad was still alive."

Fiona knew she was in dangerous territory, but decided to press her luck.

Still looking out at the bay, she asked, "What happened?"

"It was Thanksgiving, and my mom had a bruise on her cheek. I knew he did it, and I was furious. I antagonized him all day, trying to get him to pick a fight. After dinner, he finally put his hands on me. I knocked him down with one punch. It should have been satisfying, but it wasn't. All those years, I thought it could be that easy. But it didn't fix anything, didn't change anything. It just made him angrier, and mom and Nate probably paid the price. Two days later, I was on a plane back to Bosnia, and my mom was still stuck with my dad in Miami. There was nothing I could do."

Fiona tried to look at him without staring, wanting to read his face without intruding. It was one of the longest stories he'd ever told her about his past.

"My own father wasn't exactly a saint," she said after a long moment, dropping her eyes to her hands where they rested in her lap. "After he died, everyone tried to canonize him. But eventually, I learned the truth. He was a violent man, and that violence wasn't always nice. I loved him, and I still admire his passion—his dedication to the cause. But he was also small-minded. Sometimes, I think he only saw the cause, and ignored the people it left behind."

She looked up again and found Michael's eyes waiting for her. She could tell he wanted to say something. But instead, he did something truly unexpected, reaching across the seat to cover her hand with his.

Fiona was looking down at Michael's hand covering hers when the car screeched sideways, followed by a loud bang. She was scrambling for her Beretta when her head collided with the window. And then everything went dark.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Michael eyes blinked open to greet a pounding headache and a harsh neon light. Instinctively, he tried to reach for his head, and discovered that his hands were handcuffed behind him to the slats of the metal chair he was sitting on; his feet were zip-tied to the legs of the same chair. With more than a little consternation, he also realized that he wasn't wearing any pants or shoes; his jacket and shirt had also been removed, leaving him in just his socks, boxers, and undershirt.

The pounding in his head got even worse when he realized he was being addressed in husky, deep-throated Russian.

"The great Michael Westen," his deep-voiced captor declared. "You sleep a lot for a legend."

"What is this?" Michael answered in English, his confusion only partly feigned. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"We want you, Michael Westen."

Gradually, things started to come back to him. He'd been focused on the warmth of Fiona's hand when he saw the flash of lights in the rear-view mirror; he'd pulled the steering wheel to the right, but not fast enough to avoid the forced collision. The black Toyota Tacoma had slammed into the Charger, which had in turn slammed into the guard rail. Michael's head had hit the steering wheel while Fiona had been thrown against the passenger's side window. Everything that happened next was a bit of a blur. He remembered being dragged from the car and landing at least one solid punch before another set of hands had grabbed him from behind and clamped a rag over his face. He'd lost consciousness trying—and failing—to catch a glimpse of Fiona.

How he could have missed the tail was a mystery. The rational part of him knew it was impossible to see and know everything. His car was easy to spot, he'd drawn too much attention at the restaurant, and there were too many people who wanted him dead. But he was still furious with himself for allowing the mistake, whatever it was. He was also worried about the identity of his captors; if they were good enough to sneak up on him, they might be a real threat.

Michael looked up at the men staring down at him. There were three of them. Michael remembered the two men in the back from his survey of the restaurant. They were both in their early 30s, thick with protein shake muscles and wearing trendy suits with skinny ties; the one on the left had long blonde hair tied into a low ponytail, and the one on the right had dark hair styled in a side-parted undercut. Michael didn't recognize the man asking the questions. He was older than the other two, and decked out in the standard uniform of a certain type of Russian gangster: black Adidas track suit and sneakers, five-day old, greying stubble, and the stench of cheap cigarettes. Each man displayed a semi automatic; the man in the track suit held what seemed to be a well-loved Makarov in his left hand, while his younger friends had shiny new Glocks tucked into their pants.

Choosing a cover on the fly, Michael decided to play dumb, at least until he could figure out who his captors worked for, and what they wanted.

"I don't know what's going on," he said, adding a note of fear and panic to his voice. "I don't speak—what is that, Polish…? I haven't done anything wrong. I'm just a software developer, okay? You know those fun apps on your phone? The ones where you kick fruit and shoot zombies? I make those."

"You may drop the charade, Michael Westen," Track Suit chided. "We know who you are."

"You want money? I've got money. I can get you anything you want. Just please— _please_ don't hurt me."

Michael saw the slap coming, and tried to duck his head subtly to the side. But it still stung, Track Suit's thick gold pinky ring cutting into his skin. He blinked, and could feel a narrow stream of blood tricking down his cheek.

"No games," Track Suit reprimanded in Russian. He switched to accented English to add, "You will answer our questions, or we will harm the girl."

Michael's gut clenched.

"What girl?" he asked innocently.

Track Suit signalled to his friend with the side-parted undercut, then stepped aside to let him get to work. Undercut flexed his knuckles once, and then slammed his fist into Michael's midsection.

"Your Russian must be rusty," Track Suit said in English. "I said no games."

"You mean the girl I was having dinner with? She'd nobody. I just met her tonight—through an escort service."

"I think she is more than this."

"Think what you want. Won't make it true."

Michael coughed reflexively as Undercut's fist connected with his lungs.

"Then it will not interest you to know that this girl is dead."

Michael covered his worry with another cough. He knew Track Suit was lying; it was textbook emotional manipulation. But his guilt aggravated his concern, making it difficult to separate what he knew from what he feared.

He looked up at his interrogators, and smiled with all his teeth. He'd effectively dropped his unconvincing cover in favour of a new strategy: keeping the Russians' attention focused on himself, allowing Fiona the best possible chance to either mount a rescue or escape from wherever she was being held.

"Great thing about Miami," he said lightly, "is there's always more tricks."

This flippancy earned him another shot to the lungs. Michael sputtered and heaved, but managed not to groan or cry out in pain.

"Maybe the girl is not dead," said Track Suit, returning to his native Russian. "Maybe we will bring her in here. And then we will make you watch as we show her what a real man is, yes?"

Michael's gut clenched again, and not from the punches.

"Go for it," he enthused. "She's paid up for the night."

For variety, Undercut worked his spleen.

Michael closed his eyes and bit his cheek inside his mouth, refusing to voice either his building worry or his pain. He had the utmost faith in Fiona's abilities, but if she'd been captured, even she'd be no match for three huge Russian thugs armed with semi automatic pistols. He sunk his teeth further into his cheek as his mind replayed the scene at the restaurant and afterwards, wondering what he'd missed, and how these men might be connected to a case, past or present. They was fairly certain they weren't connected to Alison and Steve; Michael remembered the incident with Trevor and Rico, so knew Alison, at least, was on the level. But there must be some other connection. If he could just figure out what his interrogators wanted, he might at least be able to make a play to keep Fiona out of it.

"Who knows where you were tonight?" demanded Track Suit.

"Well, let's see… I called the cops before I went out, just to make they were keeping an eye on me…"

Undercut went back to his lungs.

"No. More. Games."

Track Suit shoved Undercut away, and took the pleasure of assaulting Michael himself. It was a good punch; Michael could feel his stitches pulling against his skin, wrists scrapping against the metal cuffs as his body wrenched.

Track Suit stepped back and walked toward the door, his left hand clenching and unclenching around his Makarov. Michael used the lull in the action to run his fingers over the locks of his cuffs and inspect his surroundings. It was a medium-sized, filthy room, furnished with a large metal desk and a smattering of chairs, papers, and broken cardboard boxes; it seemed to be the administrative office of an out-of-use warehouse. Within his field of vision, there was a door straight ahead and another to the left that seemed to head further into the building.

Finally, Track Suit returned. He sat down and pulled his chair very close to Michael's, close enough that Michael couldn't help cringing at his foul breath, heavy with food and nicotine. For long, uncomfortable moments, Track Suit studied Michael's face while deliberately avoiding his eyes. Michael knew it was a gesture of intimidation. Track Suit was letting him know that he didn't respect him—that he thought he was an animal or a piece of meat, rather than a person.

Track Suit raised his Makarov to Michael's face, resting the muzzle against his temple. Then he proceeded to run the gun gently, almost seductively, down Michael's face. Michael forced himself not to flinch. He'd had interrogators try to seduce him in the past—some genuinely, and some for purposes of intimidation or humiliation. Pretending to succumb to the seduction could be as useful for a male operative as a female one, but in both cases, it was rarely any fun; Michael very much hoped he wouldn't have to pursue that tack in this instance, while knowing full well that if Fiona's life was at stake, he would do what he had to.

"The great Michael Westen…" Track Suit intoned, tracing Michael's jawline. "Do you know what we are going to do to you, Michael Westen?"

"You're either going to punch me again or ask me to suck off your gun—both good options."

Track Suit bared his grimy teeth in a self-satisfied smirk as he brought the gun to a rest against Michael's chest, pointing the muzzle at the small bandage covering his stitches.

"We are going to take you back to Russia," Track Suit said. "There, we are going to make your presence known to some people who will be very interested to hear of it. Then we will get very rich—and you will get very dead."

"Is that right."

"This is right. But we will not do any of these things right away. First, you will watch me do to your woman things that will make her scream. Things that will make her beg for mercy. And then, you will beg for mercy. You will beg me to kill her to end your own suffering."

Michael couldn't help the images that passed through his pain-addled brain. He saw Fiona in chains—bruised, cut and bleeding, screaming with rage. Fiona would never go down without a fight, a certainty that filled him with pride. But she would go down. And it would be his fault—for not seeing the tail, but also for accepting her dinner date in the first place. It was a sign of his growing complacency that he'd thought he could have that—that he could enjoy Fiona's company in a public place and not pay a price.

Channelling all his guilt and anger into a supreme performance of dispassion, Michael shrugged in his restraints, and said, "Suit yourself."

Track Suit shook his head slowly, as though disappointed by an eldest son. He pushed himself to his feet and signalled again for Undercut. Undercut's punch hit Michael directly across his stitches. Immediately, Michael felt like he'd been shot all over again, his entire upper body exploding with searing, nauseating pain. He almost vomited trying to collect his breath, his vision growing fuzzy as he reeled in his restraints.

"The great Michael Westen…" Track Suit said again. "Every legend gets old, and weak—soft on fine dining and a woman's touch. I cannot wait to meet this woman, who has helped reduce you to this."

Michael tried to come up with a witty response, but his throat was too constricted with pain.

"Nothing to say?" Track Suit chided. "Can you no longer even defend yourself against these charges of decadence?"

Undercut backhanded him again across the face; unable to prepare, Michael took the full force of the blow and tasted blood inside his mouth.

"I wonder," Track Suit began again, "if you even understand the legend you are in my country. In Russia, the name of Michael Westen is spoken with hatred, but also reverence. _Reverence_. I always suspected the legend was the work of liars and cowards. I am both gratified and disappointed to see that I am right."

Michael burned with anger; not at Track Suit's words, but at the entire situation. He'd finally realized that this wasn't a real interrogation, and these weren't trained operatives. Back at the restaurant, he hadn't spotted the tail because there hadn't been one. Michael was trained to identify other professionals, but he hadn't been prepared for an amateur ambush—for a car that raced to catch up rather than trying to disguise its presence. His captors were probably just reckless, two-bit gangsters trying to make a name for themselves, hoping to seem big and powerful by taking down a "legend." People like that were almost impossible to turn, because their investment was emotional rather than monetary, personal rather than national. They were also de facto irrational, though that trait, at least, did offer some possibilities for manipulation.

Michael looked Track Suit in the eye; when he spoke, his voice was hoarse, but steady.

"I wonder what you think is going to happen here. You think you take down me, all your troubles are over? You think you're going to make _friends_ bringing me back to Russia?"

Michael ran his tongue over his teeth, making sure they were well coated with blood before he laughed, derisively, at his captors.

"You have no idea what you're dealing with," he said. "You think a man becomes a legend on his own? I have people everywhere. And they're going to be coming for you. After tonight, your life won't be worth whatever you paid for your Adidas couture."

"If you have people everywhere," said Track Suit, "where are they now? Why do they not come to your aid?"

"Maybe," said Michael, "they're already here."

"Or maybe, you are a liar."

A second punch landed across Michael's stitches. Before passing out, he screamed with frustration as much as pain, outraged that it might end here, like this, at the hands of a bunch of Russian nobodies who didn't even know how to conduct a proper interrogation. He was especially sick with fury that in what might be the last moments of his life, he wasn't able to honest about Fiona—that he wasn't able to say or even acknowledge how much he loved her.

His last thought was an image of Fiona, the memory of her face above his hospital bed merging with an earlier memory, of her face above a motel bed. In both images, she wasn't so much angry as disappointed. And there was nothing he could do to fix it.


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Fiona woke with a start to greet the darkness of a blindfold. The car crash came back to her in a lighting flash of panic that she quickly battled back, enough to take stock of her situation.

Thankfully, she seemed unhurt; her head was warm and throbbing where it had collided with the car window, and her joints were stiff, but she was otherwise fit. She shifted in her seat to test her restraints. Each ankle was zip-tied to the leg of a metal chair, and her arms were stretched behind her, handcuffed to the slats. She was still wearing her dress and her shoes, but the pins and elastics had been removed from her hair, which now hung loosely around her shoulders. Her snakeskin clutch was long gone.

She wanted to call Michael's name, but resisted the impulse. Instead, she sat quietly, and listened.

She was quite sure she was alone in the room, which had the muggy dampness, concrete floors, and echo-y reverb of a warehouse. But there were voices close by, likely in another room.

At first, Fiona couldn't hear much from the other room—just the low rumble of male speech and moving furniture. Then one voice got louder; it sounded like the beginning of an interrogation.

Staying absolutely still and breathing as quietly as she could, Fiona could just make out the tenor of Michael's voice, responding to the questions. She couldn't hear the exact words, but she was fairly sure the questions were being asked in Russian, and that Michael was responding in English.

After a minute of back and forth, she heard what sounded like a backhanded slap. Fiona cringed instinctively; in her mind's eye, she could see the scar around Michael's eye opened up, a tiny rivulet of blood dripping down his cheek.

There were more Russian questions, then more of Michael's voice; his voice cut off following what Fiona knew to be the heavy thud of a fist sinking into his midsection.

Fiona ground her teeth into her lip and her nails into palms as she listened to blow after blow rain down on Michael's body, punctuated with the occasional sputtering cough and mumble of speech. It wasn't the first time she'd had to endure Michael getting beaten. She didn't think this particular group of interrogators was going to kill him, at least not yet; she knew the signs, and things didn't feel right. But that didn't make the punches any easier to hear.

She drew blood from her own lip when she heard a particularly heavy thump followed by a higher pitched cry of pain. Michael was trained, Fiona knew, to manage pain. He could mask his responses or exaggerate them, depending on what the situation required. But he wasn't superhuman, especially with a slowly mending hole in his clavicle.

There were another few thuds, a slap, more Russian words, and then silence, followed by a more subdued conversation. It sounded as though Michael had passed out; not an ideal circumstance, but at least they'd stopped hitting him.

Fiona didn't know how long she sat there in the silence of the muggy, cavernous space, her fingers memorizing the contours of her handcuffs. It was a useless activity; without a tool to pick the lock, escape was impossible. But it kept her mind occupied; the last thing she needed was to dwell on the thought of what lay on the other side of the door—namely, Michael's bleeding, broken, and hopefully-not-dead body.

Finally, she heard the deep Russian voice start up again, followed by another slap and what sounded like a bucket of water being dumped, probably over Michael's head. Her heart jumped as she heard Michael cough, grateful beyond reason for the sign of life. After some more shuffling, a door swung open on its hinges, and a body that presumably belonged to Michael was dragged into the room, feet scraping on the concrete floor. Fiona decided to fake unconsciousness, hoping for a chance to confer with Michael before making a play. She kept her head lolled to the side against her shoulder as two men sloughed Michael onto a metal chair and bound him with handcuffs and zip ties. No words were exchanged; once the two men were finished with their task, they left, pulling the door closed behind them.

The absolute silence returned, punctuated only by the sound of Michael's ragged, shallow breathing. Fiona guessed he was seated close behind her, less than a foot away. She wasn't sure if he was blindfolded, so she took a chance, and whispered his name.

"Michael."

"Fi…?" Michael slurred back.

"I'm here."

"Are you—"

"I'm okay."

Michael didn't say anything. He just breathed—with difficulty.

"Are _you_ okay?" she asked, keeping her voice low.

"No," Michael admitted, the strain evident in his own low voice.

"Your stitches?"

"Yeah."

Fiona reached back as far as her restraints would allow; it was just enough to brush her fingertips against Michael's back. He was stripped down to his undershirt, which was soaked through with water, sweat, or both.

For as long as she could bear the strain, Fiona kept her hand close to Michael's body, hearing each breath a bit deeper than the one before. After a few minutes, she heard him spit, and could tell it was heavy with blood.

"Fi."

"I'm here."

"We need to—"

"I know. How do you want to play it?"

"Open to suggestions."

"Any idea who these guys are?"

"They're Russian."

"Anyone you know?"

"Don't think so."

"Randoms? Heard your name and made a play for glory?"

"Maybe."

Fiona ground her teeth. "Idiots. When we get out of here—"

" _If_ we get out of here, Fi."

Fiona clenched her jaw tighter against the chill that crept up her spine.

"You should try to get your belt so I can—"

"They took my belt, Fi. And my pants. And my shoes and watch."

"Fine, then we can—"

"Fi—"

"I might be able to—"

"Fi—"

"Maybe if we—"

" _Fi_."

She stopped at the hissed urgency of her name. " _What_ ," she hissed back angrily.

"Just… stop. For a minute—okay? I just, I need to… I need to tell you something."

Fiona flexed in her restraints, hating the doubt and finality in Michael's voice. "Fine. Tell me."

She heard him take as deep a breath as he was able to.

"When I got shot… I thought I'd never see you again."

Fiona snorted. "Now you know how I feel."

The words escaped her lips before she could stop them; she knew it wasn't the time to pour salt in that wound, but in the heat of the moment, she couldn't help herself.

"I know, Fi," Michael's pained voice whispered. "And I'm sorry. I never wanted… I'm sorry."

In the long silence that followed, Fiona closed her eyes against her blindfold, and listened to the uncertain rhythm of Michael's breathing; there was a tiny hitch on each exhale, accompanied by a barely audible rasp deep in his throat. She could smell him now, too—the familiar scent of his skin and hair mixed with blood, dust, sweat, and stagnant water. She counted one breath… Two… Three… Four…

"Apologize later," she told him. "Right now, we need a plan."

Michael didn't say anything; Fiona chose to interpret his silence as agreement.

"Do they know who I am?" she asked.

"What?"

"Do they think I'm just your date?"

"I… don't know. I told them you were a call girl."

"Do you think I could talk my way to the bathroom?"

"Too risky. There were at least three guys when they worked me over, all armed."

"You have a better idea?"

There was a long pause.

"No," he said at last.

"Fine. Are you ready?"

"Yes—wait, no."

She heard a small groan as Michael shifted in his chair. Instinctively, she reached back to meet his outstretched hand with hers. They made enough contact that Michael was able to squeeze her fingers.

"Be careful," his hoarse voice whispered.

Fiona almost felt sick, dizzy at her own sudden swing from anger to tenderness.

She nodded, and then remembered Michael couldn't see her.

"It'll be fine," she whispered back. "I promise."

Michael squeezed her fingers one final time, and then took his hand away. Which meant it was time.

Fiona inhaled a large gulp of air, and then screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Hey! "Heeeyyyy! I need _help_ in here! Heeeeeelllppp!"

The door slammed open, rapid footsteps making their way toward her chair.

"What is this?" a Russian-accented voice demanded. "What is happening?"

"You tell me, buddy!" Fiona shot back in a brash American accent. "One minute, I'm on my way to Miccosukee to earn the best piece of change I've had in weeks, the next I'm tied up in some grubby warehouse. What the fuck is this shit?!"

"Ask your boyfriend," the Russian suggested.

" _Boyfriend_?" she echoed incredulously. "This pussy who passed out after a few love taps? He'd just my _trick_. I never met him before tonight. Whatever he's messed up in, I don't want any fucking part of it."

"And I am supposed to care about this because…?"

" _Because_ —maybe we can help each other," she said. She lowered her voice to a seductive register to add, "You're a man, I'm a woman… You do the math."

Fiona knew it was it was a lame ploy. She never would have considered it if they weren't desperate, and if she wasn't fairly certain that the thugs holding them were amateurs. Fiona was betting—or at least hoping—that the thugs were playing above their pay grade, trained by movies and ripe to be seduced by their clichés.

She could feel the Russian hesitating; she was sure he was tempted, but was either suspicious or reluctant to incur the wrath of his boss. To hook him, she'd need to give him a good excuse to accept her invitation.

"Listen," she said, "let me level with you. I'm just about ready to piss myself over here. Seriously—if you leave me here, I am gonna piss all over this chair. And who's gonna have to clean that up, huh? Your boss gonna do it?"

The Russian continued to hesitate.

"Tell you what," she continued, "you get me to the bathroom, and I'll make it worth your while. Your boss doesn't have to know. Just get me as far as the bathroom—I'll do the rest."

She heard the Russian shift his weight, and knew she was nearly there. She licked her lips and curved them into her best playful-but-dangerous smile.

"The blindfold can stay on," she promised.

That was the ticket. The Russian knelt at her feet and cut the zip ties binding her ankles; then he moved behind her and unlocked her cuffs.

"No tricks," he warned as he seized her wrist, trying—and failing—to sound threateningly macho.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Fiona purred back.

In the next room, Fiona picked up the smell of bodies and cigarettes a moment before she heard a deep voice that she quickly recognized as Michael's main interrogator. The deep voice uttered a protest in Russian; though Fiona's Russian was spotty at best, she knew when she was being called a bitch in any language.

The man holding Fiona defended himself in Russian, and the deep voice grunted. Then Fiona found herself led forward again, through another doorway and onto a tiled floor that must be the bathroom.

"There," her Russian captor barked in English, as he tossed her forward and closed the door behind them. "Do your business."

"Can't a girl get a little privacy?" she tried.

"No."

Fiona nodded, more to herself than the Russian; she didn't really think she'd get lucky enough to be left alone. Activating her Plan B, she made a show of fumbling with the toilet seat, letting her heel tangle in the hem of her dress as she grumbled and hissed with frustration.

"Look," she said, "I know I said the blindfold could stay on, but I _really_ don't want to piss on my dress. Do you mind…?"

The Russian hesitated again, but finally conceded. Fiona blinked as her captor came into focus. He was a 30-ish, square-jawed man with cruel eyebrows and long blond hair tucked into a low ponytail. But his most distinguishing feature was the shiny Glock dangling from his right hand.

"Oh _my_ …" she cooed, "if I knew _this_ was waiting, I never would've agreed to stay blind."

She dropped her hip and flounced forward. Ponytail reacted predictably, switching the Glock into his left hand to cup her hip with his right.

Before Ponytail even knew what was happening, Fiona had his arm locked against her body. She sized his gun and kneed him hard in the groin to create space, then aimed the gun at his head.

"One word," she whispered, "one bullet in your brain. Get the picture?"

Ponytail nodded, his face blank with disbelief.

"Now—you are going to _very slowly_ empty your pockets into the sink."

Ponytail's pockets ended up containing a handful of zip ties, a jackknife, a wallet, and a cell phone.

" _Very_ good," she told him. "And now, you're going to take a seat next to that sink, and show me your wrists."

Fiona zip-tied Ponytail's hands to the sink, then used her blindfold to make a gag, delighting in Ponytail's muffled grunt of pain as she pulled the knot tight.

Wishing, for once, that she'd worn a bra, Fiona settled for tucking the cell phone, jackknife, and spare zip ties into the strap of her dress. Glock in hand, she approached door, and listened. Not hearing any immediately adjacent sounds, she pushed the door open an inch, and peered into the room beyond.

She was looking into what appeared to be the office of a long-abandoned warehouse. About twenty feet away, an older man in a track suit was seated at a steel desk across from a younger man with a side-parted undercut. The man in the track suit was facing her; the younger man had his back to her. Both were engrossed in a game of poker amid a messy stack of papers. There was a spare set of handcuffs and a well-loved Makarov resting on the table nearest the man with the undercut.

Fiona debated removing her shoes, but decided that the risk of stepping on a nail or piece of glass outweighed the benefits of additional stealth. As quietly as possible, she pushed the door open, and aimed her stolen Glock at the centre of Track Suit's forehead. For several long, delicious seconds, he remained oblivious to her presence, unaware she held his life in her hands.

Finally, Fiona opened her almost-smiling lips and said, in a clear, loud voice, "I'd fold, if I were you."

Track Suit's head bolted up as Undercut scrambled for the Makarov. Fiona immediately dipped her own gun, and shot a clean hole through Undercut's right foot. Undercut screamed in pain as the bullet ripped through his bones and tendons and sent a violent jet of blood spattering against the desk. Makarov abandoned on the table, Undercut tumbled off his chair and landed in a writhing, wet pile on the floor.

Track Suit made a move toward his comrade, but Fiona stopped him with a forceful movement of her Glock.

"That was a warning," she told him. "I could remove _your_ toes one at a time."

"What do you want?" Track Suit barked.

"I think that's pretty obvious," said Fiona. "I want you dead. But like the song says, we don't always get what we want. So for the time being, I'll settle for your donation to my gun collection."

After collecting another cell phone and wallet and two sets of keys, she handcuffed Track Suit's wrists to the chair, and zip-tied his ankles to the legs. Then she turned her attention back to Undercut.

"Hey."

Undercut didn't respond.

" _Hey_ ," she repeated. "You want me to add a kneecap to your misery?"

Hands squeezing the hole in his foot that was still gushing blood, Undercut looked up at her with baleful, pain-filled eyes.

"Empty your pockets," she commanded.

When all was said and done, Fiona had collected two Glocks, a Makarov, three sets of keys, three cell phones, three wallets, and a half empty pack of Dentyne Ice. She used the last of the zip ties to bind Undercut's hands to one of the legs of the heavy steel desk, and found the right building key to lock Ponytail inside the bathroom.

Looking around for some material to make two more gags, she spotted a pile of Michael's things in a corner of the room. She scooped up his shirt, pants, watch, belt and jacket, but found that his shoes were missing, along her snakeskin clutch.

She turned to Track Suit. "These outfits came with shoes and a handbag. Where are they?"

"Gone," Track Suit said.

"Really."

She dropped the clothes on an extra metal chair and stalked back toward Undercut. He shrieked as she jammed her foot down on the ankle of his bleeding foot, pinning it to the floor under the arch of her stiletto heel.

"Shoes. Handbag. Where."

"Gone," Undercut choked.

Fiona tapped her Glock against his kneecap. "I warned you..."

"Wait!" Undercut protested breathlessly. "I am serious! We threw them out of the car. In case of bugs."

Reluctantly, Fiona withdrew her foot and her gun, shaking her head disdainfully. "You watch too many spy movies."

She used the jackknife to rip Michael's shirt in half for two gags. As she was tying Undercut's gag, Track Suit spoke.

"We have money," he said.

"Excuse me?" asked Fiona, straightening to look at him.

"Whatever he is paying you—we will double it."

"Double of nothing is still nothing, I'm afraid."

"What kind of man does not even _compensate_ a woman of your obvious talents?" Track Suit asked, sounded earnestly disgusted.

Fiona went to Track Suit's side. She leaned in close to his stubble to whisper, "The kind who doesn't need to."

"What does he have," Track Suit asked, "to inspire this loyalty?"

"Haven't you heard?" Fiona asked, a moment before she shoved the gag into his mouth. "It's not what you've got—it's how you use it."

Part of her wanted to pistol whip him for good measure, but resisted the impulse. Though she'd never admit it, she had learned a few things from Michael about the usefulness of channeling her passions; sometimes, careless disdain could be as effective as aggression.

Fiona bundled together her collection of phones and wallets in Michael's Armani jacket, offering a silent apology to the fashion gods as she knotted the sleeves together. Keeping one Glock, the jackknife, Michael's pants, and the keys close at hand, she carried everything back toward the door leading into the storage room.

She knocked the door open with her shoulder, and finally got her first glimpse of Michael. Her stomach turned at the sight. He was at the centre of the huge, empty space, trying to hold himself together but essentially kept upright up by the handcuffs digging into his wrists and the ties around his ankles. There was a deep scarlet stain on his left shoulder, and dried blood at the edges of his black blindfold.

Fiona made sure the door was closed behind her before jogging to his side. On the way, she spoke his name like a prayer, giving in to the worry she'd been biting back for most of the past hour.

"Michael. I'm here— _Michael_."

"Are you—"

"It's over," she told him. "But we need to get out of here."

Fiona touched the side of his face, letting him feel her presence before removing his blindfold. Michael's eyes blinked gingerly at the dim light as she cut the ties on his ankles, followed by the ones on his wrists. She wanted to rub each ankle and wrist as she freed it, but didn't; there would be time for that later.

"Can I have my pants?" Michael asked weakly.

Fiona's adrenaline almost exploded in laughter and she handed over the pants in question. Sensing Michael was going to have difficulty bending down, she helped him put his feet through the legs, and let him lean on her as he shifted to pull them up.

"I've got your watch, but your shoes are gone—sorry."

"That's okay."

"Can you stand?" she asked.

"Sure."

With her help, Michael got halfway to his feet, but was thrown back by an audible wave of pain.

"Sorry," he panted. "My shoulder…"

Fiona nodded. "We need to bandage it."

Without hesitation, she thrust the knife into the fabric of her dress, and started ripping. Once she'd ripped off a solid piece, she began wrapping it around Michael's chest over his wet, blood-stained undershirt; it wasn't hygienic, but it would have to do.

"How does that feel?" she asked, tying off the ends of the fabric.

"I'll live," he said, his voice stronger. "Let's go."

Their second attempt to leave was more successful. With Fiona's help, Michael made it all the way to his feet with only a small groan of discomfort. He kept his right arm looped over her shoulders as they made their way toward the office.

"So what did you—"

"The one with the ponytail is zip-tied to the sink in the bathroom. The guy with the undercut is zip-tied to a steel desk in the office. The older one in the track suit is handcuffed to a metal chair."

As they neared the office, she saw Michael's eyes narrow at the blood she'd tracked in on the soles of her shoes.

"That can't be mine," he observed.

"It belongs to one of our friends," she said. "I shot him."

"In the _foot_ ," she added quickly, anticipating Michael's admonishment.

Surprisingly, though, no admonishment came. Instead, Michael said, "Give me the knife and the handcuff keys."

"Why?" she asked, already handing them over.

"Because I need to finish this."

Michael pulled his arm from her shoulder, straightened his back, and continued walking on his own toward the office. Fiona followed behind him, watching his miraculously steady gait and swelling with pride. Only Michael Westen could look cool and confident in a filthy undershirt and stocking feet, with a newly re-opened bullet wound oozing blood through a tattered bandage wrapped around his chest.

With his good arm, Michael thrust open the door to the office. Fiona surveyed the scene along with Michael. Undercut's eyes were pinched shut, but the blood from his foot had slowed to a trickle. Track Suit was biting his gag and glaring at Michael with a look that was equal parts contempt and barely-concealed awe.

Michael looked long and hard at each man. Then he slowly and deliberately approached Undercut. Somehow, he managed to bend down without falling down, and used the knife to cut the zip ties binding Undercut's hands. Undercut stared up at Michael, tears misting his wide eyes. For a split second, Fiona almost felt sorry for the underling, who was so clearly out of his depth with his world crumbling around him. A few short minutes ago, he must have thought he'd won the lottery; now, he was wondering if he'd survive the night. But her pity was short-lived; no one, she knew, simply falls into the business of abduction, murder, and rape.

"You see these?" Michael asked, jiggling the handcuff keys like a dog toy in front of Undercut's face.

Michael walked back to the door separating the office from the storage room, kicked it open, and tossed the keys as far as he could across the cavernous space.

"If you can get to those," he said, "you can unlock your friends. And maybe they'll be good enough friends to take you to the hospital. I'd hurry though—I've got more people on the way."

Apparently satisfied that he'd made his point, Michael glanced in her direction and tilted his head toward the outside door. Fiona paused on the threshold while Michael held the door open, unable to resist a final salvo. Pitching her voice load enough that she hoped Ponytail could hear from the bathroom, she said, "And just so we're all clear: Michael Westen is under _my_ protection. He's the legend you've heard about. I'm the one you haven't. Which one is more dangerous, do you think?"

Fiona thought she saw a small smile flash across Michael's lips as she slipped past him into the warm Miami night; the sight almost made the entire evening worthwhile. Michael's faltering step wrenched her back to reality. Resuming her place at Michael's side, Fiona helped him over to the black Toyota Tacoma that matched the keys she'd stolen from Track Suit. With an effort, Michael managed to climb up into the passenger's side seat, while Fiona jogged around to the driver's side.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Michael said, unnecessarily, once they were both seated in the cab.

"Do you want to call the cops?" Fiona asked, starting the engine.

"No. It'll just cause more problems. I don't want to be another person of interest in an ongoing investigation. Those guys won't be back. And if you do come back, we'll be ready."

Fiona nodded in agreement, pulling out onto the first available road. It didn't take her long to get her bearings; within minutes, they were on the I-95, heading south.

" _We_ should go to the hospital," she said.

"I'm fine," Michael insisted, not very convincingly. "Let's just go to the loft."

"You're not fine."

"Fi…"

"Okay, okay. No hospital. Do you want me to call Sam?"

"In the morning. Let's just…"

"Okay."

They drove in silence the rest of the way, Fiona shooting Michael a series of concerned glances while trying not to speed badly enough to get caught.

Thankfully, the club beneath the loft was deserted; it had been closed for several weeks while Oleg dealt with a liquor licence violation. Fiona parked the truck in the driveway where the Charger usually stayed, and helped Michael up the stairs, which ended up being a somewhat laborious process.

Inside the loft, she dropped Michael at the kitchen table; he half-sat in one of the bar stools, collecting his breath.

"I have to ditch the car," she said. "I can still call Sam if you…"

Michael shook his head. "Go. I'll be fine."

Before she left, she stopped at Michael's wardrobe to pick up a hooded windbreaker that covered almost all of her torn dress; she also grabbed some cash and a new cell from one of Michael's emergency bags.

She ditched the car with the keys in the ignition at the parking lot of a 24-hour fast food joint, virtually guaranteeing it would be stolen by morning. From there, she took a cab to the closest apartment complex from the loft, and then walked the rest of the way, doing her best to convince herself that the strap cutting into her pinky toe was still steadying, rather than excruciating.

By the time she stepped through the loft's bomb-warped door for the third time in twenty-four hours, Michael looked somewhat better. He'd discarded the remains of his suit and changed into a pair of grey track pants. He'd also managed to wash most of the grime and blood off his face and neck. He was sitting in his favourite green chair, shirtless and with what looked like a white T-shirt pressed into his left shoulder.

"Is it still bleeding?" she asked.

"A little," Michael confirmed, his voice steady, but tired. "It's just the stitches, I think."

"I'll be right there."

For the second time that day, Fiona did a cursory wash in Michael's bathroom. She dropped her blood-stained shoes directly into the trash, her ruined dress joining them a second later. She put on one of Michael's mostly clean dress shirts that happened to be hanging in the bathroom, and applied some disinfectant from the med kit to the cut on her head, under her hair. She didn't have anything to tie back her hair, so she simply knotted it together and tucked it inside the collar of her shirt. She also scrubbed her hands and nails carefully, preparing for the stitches to come. When she was done, she brought the med kit to the living area, then went to the kitchen to boil some water and collect the whisky.

She dragged two empty wooden crates over to Michael's chair, one to sit on, and the second one for the med kit, whisky, and shot glasses.

"Any broken ribs?" she asked.

"Can't tell."

Fiona perched on the edge of one of the crates and proceeded to inspect Michael's rib cage. She tried not to press too hard on the red welts that had already started to purple on his skin, but she couldn't avoid every sore spot. Michael made a few faces, but didn't complain. Fiona took a bit longer with her inspection than was probably necessary, enjoying the solid, alive feeling of Michael's body under her hands.

"I think you're okay," she said at last, reluctantly removing her hands. "Feels like it's mostly bruises."

"Russian goons just aren't what they used to be, I guess."

Fiona offered a small smile, pleased by his attempted levity. "You want a pick-me-up before I do the stitches?"

Michael nodded. Fiona poured a large shot. Since Michael didn't have an available hand, Fiona raised the glass for him

"Cheers," she saluted, as she pressed the glass to his lips.

Michael swallowed the shot with a minor grimace. Fiona put down the glass but stayed close, pulled into the orbit of Michael's warm skin and whisky-damp lips. She wiped an imaginary drop of liquid from the corner of his mouth with the edge of her thumb, and then touched his cheekbone under the new cut below his scar.

Michael tilted his face up, parted lips looking for hers. Fiona's pulse surged in her chest a split second before she dodged him, brushing her own lips against his forehead and cheek. She wanted him badly, residual adrenaline mixed with stress lighting a fire on her skin. But she was stayed by the sight of his blood and the welts on his torso, as well as her vivid memory of the warehouse—of the pain and especially the fear she'd heard in Michael's strained voice. At the moment, Michael wasn't himself. And Fiona had never wanted him to be anything less than everything.

"Are you ready?" she asked softly.

Michael offered a small nod, his nose tickling hers. As if on cue, the water started to boil on the stove. Fiona went to retrieve it, dumping half into a large ceramic bowl for cleaning and leaving the rest in the metal pot for sterilizing.

She carried the water over to her wooden crate table, and got to work. She began with the cut on Michael's face, disinfecting it and then applying a small bandage. Then she moved on to his shoulder. Michael hissed with pain as his T-shirt bandage popped free of the blood that had dried around his broken stitches. It was the last sound he would make for several minutes. He was silent as she cleaned the wound and began the stitches, and even closed his eyes as she worked; the only sign of his discomfort was an occasional wrinkling of his eyelids. Fiona did her best to live up to Michael's almost unnatural trust, moving the needle and thread with deft, confident precision.

"There. Done."

She cleaned the wound again and then covered it with fresh gauze and tape, which she wrapped several times diagonally around Michael's whole chest.

When she finally cut the tape and replaced it in the med kit, the tension Michael had been masking become clear in its release; his whole body seemed to liquefy as he dropped his head back against the chair and released a long, relieved, still-slightly hoarse breath.

"Thanks, Fi."

Fiona poured him another shot, which Michael gratefully accepted. She toasted him with the bottle, and took a long shot of her own. Afterwards, they both sat in silence, lulled by the liquid burning down their throats and the enervating, mingled scents of blood, whisky, and sweat.

"Do you want me to stay?" she asked.

"You don't have to."

"Do you _want_ me to?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll stay."

"Do you want any painkillers?"

"No."

"Do you want to go to bed?"

"God, yes."

"Do you need help?"

Michael shook his head, but she helped him anyway, letting him lean against her while she pulled back the blankets and arranged the pillows. Michael lowered himself carefully into the clean sheets to lie on his back. Fiona pulled the blankets up over his legs, more for comfort than warmth; as usual, the loft was almost suffocatingly hot.

Michael's eyes cracked open. "Aren't you going to join me?"

Fiona hesitated, but surrendered when he kicked back the blankets. She pressed herself loosely against Michael's side until he slipped his good arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. Fiona did her best to relax into his body, smelling his skin and hair at the crook of his neck.

"I smell terrible," Michael observed.

"It's fine," she assured him. "I smell terrible, too."

Michael uttered a small, tired snort of amusement. "Well, okay then."

Fiona closed her eyes, laid still, and listened. She heard the faint scraping of leaves against the windows and the low hum of the fridge. But the loudest sound was Michael's breathing. She counted one breath… Two… Three… Four…

She jerked upright, out of Michael's grasp. Pulling her legs toward her chest, she ducked her head between her knees and ran her suddenly shaky fingers through her tangled hair, shocked and confused by her racing heartbeat.

"Fi, what…?"

"We need to talk about it," she said bluntly, holding her head in her hands as she willed her pulse to calm.

"Talk about what?"

"About what happened."

"It doesn't matter, Fi. It's over now."

"No, it's not."

She heard Michael shift in the bed, propping himself up with his good arm.

"It was because you made a joke," he said.

She dropped her hands and looked at him, genuinely confused. "What?"

Michael's eyes drifted sideways. "I was trying to show you how much I… And then you made a joke about—Well, you know."

"You mean before dinner? At the loft?"

"Isn't that—What were you talking about?"

"The thing at the warehouse."

"Oh. Right…"

Michael dropped his gaze as he shook his head. "I saw the two younger guys at the restaurant. They weren't interested until Steve said my name. But I should have spotted the tail, Fi. I'm sorry."

"You made a mistake, Michael. We both did. But that's still not what I'm talking about."

Michael looked up again, frowning. "Then maybe you should just tell me."

"At the warehouse—you shut down."

"I didn't 'shut down,'" Michael protested. "I got punched in a healing bullet wound by a 200-pound Russian thug."

"It was more than that, Michael."

"I don't—"

"I've never heard you talk like that before."

"Like what?"

"Like you thought we might die."

"It was a bad situation," Michael defended. "I wasn't sure what would happen."

"We've been in bad situations before."

"Yeah. We have."

"So what made this different?"

"Nothing… I don't know…" he trailed off, collapsing back against the pillow.

"I was just worried about you," he said after a moment. "Is that so terrible?"

"It is if it gets us killed."

It hurt her to say it, but the potential consequences of not saying it hurt more.

"Can we talk about this later?" Michael asked wearily, his eyes already closed.

"Fine," Fiona agreed tightly. "I guess it's been a long night."

She settled back into the sheets, but all her comfort had been spoiled. This time, she didn't reach for Michael, but rather showed him her back, and tucked herself into the furthest corner of the bed.

She listened to the leaves and the hum of the fridge until exhaustion finally took her, and she fell into a thankfully dreamless sleep.


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

Michael woke up shirtless on a bed of sweaty, blood-stained sheets, his ribs and chest throbbing nearly as much as his head. The sun was streaming in through a set of thin grey curtains, glittering the dust and forming a bleeding halo around the familiar face looking down at him.

The moment he saw Fiona at his bedside, Michael reached out for her, begging her to crawl into the filthy sheets and kiss him everywhere he hurt. But no sound emerged from his strangely numb lips. Fiona stood up, and moved toward the door. Michael kept trying to call her name, but couldn't find his voice, gagging silently on a throat filled with gauze. The door slammed like a gunshot and Michael recoiled with shock, his right hand springing instinctively to a particular ache on his left side, above his heart.

Michael woke up again—really woke up this time—in his bed at the loft. Fiona's unconscious form was still curled against the opposite side of the bed, looking very small inside his white shirt and the tangle of grey sheets that swallowed her legs. For a long moment, Michael indulged the thought of how wonderful it would be to fall back into bed and pull Fiona tight against his body, his hand sliding up her midsection to cup her small, firm breasts through the fabric of her shirt. But it remained a thought; Michael couldn't touch her, because he knew wasn't ready to face her.

Instead, he stifled a groan as he climbed out of bed and began a cursory inspection of the room. He wasn't wearing his watch, but he could tell from the light poking through the east-facing windows that it was still early, probably around 6 am. He took a moment to stare out the window that held the sunrise, mentally cataloguing and ranking the dozen places his body hurt. Running a hand over his tired face and through his hair, he recoiled at his own smell. Showering would be a hassle, but one he was willing to brave.

In the bathroom, he taped plastic over his stitches and fired up his old-but-dependable shower. The front of his body was too sore to face the water, so he let it pound against his back, rolling his stiff shoulders in the warm, steady stream. For a moment, he let himself imagine the water was Fiona's hands. He still remembered the first time they'd showered together, so many years ago, in Fiona's perpetually cold Dublin flat. They'd run out of hot water and had tried to get warm again by wrapping themselves in every blanket they could find, giggling as they wrestled on the bed for each precious inch of every ancient quilt and scratchy throw.

Sometimes, he wished he could be Michael McBride for her. He was sure it was what she really wanted. She wanted the man she'd fallen in love with; he was just the man she'd settled for. It wasn't surprising that Fiona had kissed Jesse, or that she'd liked it. Jesse was similar to McBride in some ways; like McBride, Jesse was impulsive, passionate, and (at least seemingly) honest.

There were, of course, also elements of himself in McBride, more than in most characters he'd played. But he couldn't become McBride again. More accurately, he didn't want to; for him, McBride was a guilty reminder of betrayals he could never really make up for, and things he could never really have.

So much had changed since Ireland; he'd changed, and the world had changed. Fiona had changed, too; she was no longer the shaggy-haired, baggy sweater-wearing bomb maker and bank robber he'd fallen in love with. Yet the core of what he'd first loved about her remained. Her reckless passion inflamed him as much now as it had then, and he was still driven to distraction by her strong-but-delicate curves. But he'd also learned the cost of that distraction. He'd learned it the first time when his cover ID had been blown, and he'd been forced to abandon Fiona's flat in the middle of the night; he'd learned it a second time when he'd shot Tom Strickland; and he'd re-learned it again tonight.

Michael turned off the water, and stood for long minutes in the chipped ceramic bathtub with the shower curtain closed, his sore lungs inhaling the dense steam as excess water dripped down his aching body. When the dripping water started to mix with too much sweat, he pushed the curtain aside, and got out.

Seized by a desire for normalcy, he brushed his teeth and got dressed in a pair of loose jeans and a navy blue t-shirt. Putting on the t-shirt was a bit of a battle, but after three weeks, he'd had plenty of practice navigating his injured shoulder.

When he returned to the living area, Fiona was still asleep. As quietly as possible, he made his way to the fridge and retrieved an ice pack. He took the ice over to his green chair and sat down, facing Fiona's sleeping face with the ice resting against his midsection. The cold seeped quickly through his t-shirt to the swelling underneath, doing its best to soothe his burning ribs and muscles.

He lost track of time as he sat there, watching Fiona sleep. Her tiny hands were tucked up under her chin, her fingers scrunched around the too-big cuffs of his shirt. One strand of her thick auburn hair was caught between her lips; the rest was a wild tangle around her face. Against his will, he remembered another time he'd watched her sleep, when he'd been sure he'd never see her again. The memory made him both longing and fearful, hungry for Fiona's touch and scared of the effect it might have on him in his current state.

Finally, Fiona's body twitched and stretched, her eyes blinking open sleepily into the early morning light. She was lit with a cool glow inside his white shirt, and her blue-black eyeliner had bled and smudged into the bags and creases around her eyes; combined with her tangled hair, the effect was either haunting or ethereal. If he didn't think she'd laugh at him, Michael would have told her she looked beautiful.

"Hey," he greeted.

"Hey yourself," Fiona mumbled back. "What time is it?"

"I'm not sure… a little after 6:30, I think."

Fiona sat up and tried to make sense of her tangled hair.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"I'm…" Michael stared to lie, but stopped himself. "Not great, actually. I couldn't sleep."

"Got any vitamin K? It'll help with the bruises."

"There's some in the bathroom. Top shelf, behind the sink."

Fiona crawled out of bed and disappeared into the bathroom. While she was gone, Michael got to his feet and walked over to the mirror. He lifted his shirt to inspect the damage; most of the red welts had calmed into a patchwork of purple splotches.

He saw Fiona come up behind him in the mirror.

"Here," she said, "let me help you."

She laid a gentle hand on his lower back and then began to roll his shirt up and over his shoulders. Michael used his right hand to help pull the shirt forward over his head before tossing it away toward the chair. Fiona squeezed some cream into her hand and warmed it between her palms before touching his bruised flesh. It hurt, but in a good way—the kind of pain that leads to healing. Fiona was especially good at doing that to him—of convincing him the pain was worth it.

"You smell better," she observed.

"I had a shower. I was sick of smelling like whatever Russian goons keep in their slop bucket."

"Maybe they mixed up a special concoction, just for you."

"Remind me to burn my sheets."

He felt her small snort of laughter against his back, and it made him smile—his second truly genuine smile in twelve hours.

It didn't take long for his exhausted body to relax into Fiona's trusted hands. It always happened that way. Michael was afraid of Fiona's touch until he wasn't—until it happened and felt like home.

"I really missed you, Fi."

"I missed you too, Michael."

After a moment, she added, "And I'm sorry I made jokes about—you know."

"It's not your fault. Things have just been… how they've been."

Her pelvis brushed against his hip as she reached across his body to the centre of his chest. Now, as always, her touch like a distillation of herself: tender, skilled, and certain. He watched in the mirror as her strong, nimble fingers continued to circle and massage his bruises. Some bruises covered scars that she'd given him; others covered scars he'd never told her about, but wished he had.

"Tell me," she said.

"About..."

"What you wanted to tell me back at the warehouse."

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes—it does."

"I killed Strickler," he said bluntly, his quiet voice sounding unnaturally loud in the early morning silence of the loft.

"What?" Fiona's hands paused against his ribs.

"Strickler. I killed him."

"I know," she said, resuming her massage. "Sam told me."

"I… figured. I just thought I should tell you myself."

"Now? Michael, that was months ago."

"We've been busy," he offered lamely.

"He deserved it."

"I know."

"So what's the problem?"

"I didn't mean to do it."

"What does that mean?"

"It wasn't the right decision. Tactically."

"Then why—"

"Because he tried to hurt you. And I was angry." Michael flexed his good hand at his side. "But mostly I was angry at myself. I killed him because I wanted someone to blame."

Fiona had stopped her massage completely, her hands feeling strangely cold against his skin. In the mirror, he could just see her darkened hazel eyes peeking over his shoulder.

"Why are you telling me this?" she asked softly.

"Being with you makes me want to protect you. But is also makes me less able to protect you."

"I can take care of myself, Michael."

"I know. But sometimes…"

"Don't you think I feel the same way?"

"It's different."

"Why?"

"Because you're you, and I'm me."

"What is that supposed to—"

"You follow your passion. And I can't do that. When I do that, people get hurt."

"People are always going to get hurt, Michael. No matter what you do."

"So I should do nothing?"

Fiona blinked, and released him, stepping away from his body.

"What would have happened to you tonight," she asked, "if I hadn't been there?"

Michael turned to face her, but avoided her eyes. "Tonight wouldn't have happened at all if I hadn't let myself get distracted."

"And what about a dozen times before that? What about when you first got dumped in Miami? What about your showdown with Carla? What about three weeks ago? What would have happened?"

Michael shook his head, staring down at his bare feet. "I don't know."

"I do. You'd be dead."

"Maybe," he conceded.

"I _choose_ to be here. You know that, right?"

His brief hesitation prompted Fiona to take a forceful step toward him.

"What?" she questioned, voice rising. "You don't believe me?"

"I _believe_ you," he said, finally meeting her fiery gaze. "But I don't always know if you understand what you're getting into. You want things from me that I can't—"

"All I want is to be with you, Michael. You're saying that's more you can give?"

"Sometimes."

He felt sick as soon as he said it. It wasn't a complete falsehood, but it was also far from the whole truth.

Fiona turned away again, putting some distance between them before wrapping her arms around her chest. Michael could feel the hurt and anger radiating from her narrow, hunched shoulders, and hated himself for causing it. He desperately wanted to say the right thing, even if it meant lying. But he wasn't gifted with eloquence when he was playing himself. And with Fiona, he could no longer stand the thought of playing anyone besides himself.

"I need to tell _you_ something," she said.

"Okay."

"When we found you, after you got shot…" she trailed off, and cleared her throat.

"When we found you," she tried again. "I thought you were dead. You were lying in the street and there was so much blood… I held you together with my own hands until the ambulance came. Later, I had to cut my nails down to the quick to clean out all the blood, dirt, and skin—tiny bits of your shredded skin."

"I'm sorry, Fi."

" _Stop_ apologizing."

"What do you want me to say?" he asked, his voice rising with frustration.

"I don't want you to say _anything_ ," Fiona shot back, spinning to face him. "I just want you to try to _understand_. You think you need to protect me. But most of the time, _I'm_ the one protecting _you_."

"And _I'm_ saying you shouldn't _have_ to," he returned.

"I _want_ to, you stupid, goddamn…"

Fiona's hands clenched into fists as she turned away again. He watched her shoulders rise and fall as she took several deep breaths.

"I want to," she repeated, so quietly it was barely audible.

Michael studied Fiona's back. In all the world, Fiona's body was the only one almost as familiar as his own. He'd felt the warmth of her breath and the pulse of her skin in dozens of places. He'd felt it crouched in a damp sniper's perch, surrounded by musky leaves; he'd felt it tangled in a pile of quilts in the bedroom of a frigid Dublin flat; he'd felt it pinned against the corrugated steel interior of a pitch-black shipping container; he'd felt it in the sheets of the bed he grew up in; he'd felt it a dozen more times in the room where they stood—in the bed, on the chair, against the wall, in the shower.

Michael knew Fiona's shape and scent so well, he could almost feel her without touching her. Almost.

Cautiously, he stepped toward her.

"Thank you, Fi."

"For what?"

"For protecting me."

For several heartbeats, nothing happened. Michael felt her retreating into the distance, alarmed by the way dream seemed to be blending into reality. He took another step forward and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, suddenly desperate to feel and know her reality.

Fiona turned into his touch, and he gathered her gratefully into his arms, sighing with unaccountable relief. He held her as tight as he dared against his bruises, hands remembering the contours of her back as he buried his face in her hair. She still smelled like coconut oil and lemon, but diluted with sweat and a stronger scent of gunpowder.

"You're welcome," she said.

Michael brushed his day-old stubble against her cheek, enjoying the subtle friction. He knew it was his own fault that they didn't have more moments like this, enjoying the simple comfort of each other's arms.

On a whim, he asked, "Do you remember—the first time?"

"In Miami, or Ireland?"

"Ireland."

"I remember pulling slivers out of my ass for a week."

"I wanted you so badly—I couldn't wait."

"Me neither."

"Your brothers would have killed me."

"They wouldn't have killed you. But there might've been a MAC-10 wedding."

The first time had been against the side of the barn at Fiona's mother's house. It had been short and messy; his jeans had stayed tangled around his boots and Fiona never made it out of her Mac. But it had also been wonderful. At first, seducing Fiona had been part of the job. But only at first. Before they'd even finished their first dance at the Black Sand Pub, Michael had known he was in trouble. And yet, in a dereliction of duty so enormous that it still impressed and unnerved him, he hadn't cared. He'd fucked Fiona Glenanne against the side of a barn and then moved into the bed of her flat in Dublin not because it was good for his job; in truth, those decisions had been horrible for his job, spelling the beginning of the end of his perfect record at Langley. Instead, he'd moved into the bed of the tiny arms dealer with the shaggy bangs and calloused hands because he'd _wanted_ to. It had been selfish, and it had been reckless. Yet in ten years of trying, he'd never successfully made himself regret it.

At some point, he'd begun to sway with her body inside his arms. It felt right—almost like dancing. Fiona nestled her face into his neck and swayed with him. And suddenly, it didn't feel right—it felt perfect. For a moment, he acknowledged a truth he routinely denied: that Michael Westen and Michael McBride weren't so different; they were the same man, existing in different places, different times.

Fiona's lips were under his jaw when she said, "Earlier, when we were… It reminded me of McBride."

"That was me, Fi. It was always me."

Michael felt her swallow against his neck. Her hands, still moist with cream, squeezed his lower back.

The early morning light flashed in his eyes so he closed them, drinking in Fiona's familiar smell and the luxury of holding her. She felt as small as she'd looked earlier, asleep in his bed with her hands curled around his shirt cuffs. But he could also feel the lithe strength in her back and shoulders—the hard, proud muscles that had helped fell three Russian thugs and carry his broken body home.

Part of him was still thinking about the first time, and how he'd abandoned every inhibition inside Fiona's body. But as he thought about it, he also started to misremember it. Now, he wasn't the one pinning Fiona against the wind-weathered barn; instead it was Fiona pinning him there, each hard thrust throwing his naked body back against the scratchy, chipped boards while he moaned with helpless, desperate pleasure. The mechanics didn't make sense, but the feeling did; as always, he was utterly lost in Fiona's body, but also utterly happy.

His eyes were still closed when Fiona's hands slid up his spine to the back of his neck, then slid slowly down again.

"Fi…"

"Shhhh…."

From his lower back, her hands circled his hips, before dipping inside the loose waistband of his jeans. He pushed further into her grip, rubbing his jeans against her hard, warm middle. Her hands repeated their journey up and down his back; the second time they reached his jeans, they popped open the button to move deeper inside, enough to outline the curves of his ass.

His own hands swept over her hips, but when he tried to reach under the oversized shirt to her skin, she rebuffed him.

"Not yet," she whispered.

He dutifully released her. In response, Fiona reached even further into his jeans, hands plunging between his thighs to the warm area between his legs. He groaned with pleasure and frustration when she circled and cupped his balls.

She slid her hands out again, and squeezed him once through the denim before opening his fly, and shucking down his jeans and boxers. Michael made another attempt to reach for her, but she was already moving down his torso, tongue swirling around his belly button as she went.

Michael didn't realize he was facing the mirror until Fiona landed on her knees at his feet. He was forced to stare at his own naked, erect body in the glass as Fiona massaged and kissed his thighs.

He'd looked better.

But when Fiona took him into her warm, wet mouth, he didn't care.

Michael watched in the mirror as his chest rose and fell to the rhythm of Fiona's mouth, each deep breath grating on his stitches. Her hands were as busy as her mouth, stroking his balls and the base of his shaft.

As the waves of pleasure built into a rhythm, he started to have one of those moments that he sometimes had with Fiona, where he seemed to journey outside himself—as though he were watching himself from a distance. The mirror enhanced the effect; he was watching himself watching Fiona and himself, and it was hypnotizing.

He was entranced by his own expressions of pleasure—by the cloudy, faraway look of his eyes, and the way his lips seemed to plead for something to suck. At the centre of it all, there was Fiona—her own lips curled around the most intimate part of him, her dangerous hands, veterans of a thousand instruments of destruction, gripping and petting his sensitive flesh. He knew that this vision of his absolute vulnerability should have unnerved him. But instead it excited him. His fluttering heart wasn't nerves; it was giddiness at the thrill of seeing himself do something he only really did with Fiona—give up control, and allow himself to like it. The thrill registered on his body in the unpredictable flexing of his pecs and thighs and the frantic tension of his fingers.

He meant to watch his orgasm, but his good intentions were useless. As the ultimate wave of pleasure swept over his body, he closed his eyes and dropped his head back, his right hand clenching Fiona's hair in a futile bid for stability.

Afterwards, he traced patterns against the back of Fiona's head where it rested against his inner thigh, fingers tangling in her already tangled hair. His chest was tight and ragged, but it was still the best he'd felt in a very long time.

Eventually, Fiona leaned back on her haunches and gazed up at him. A close-lipped smile glowed in her eyes and inflated her sweat-damp cheeks.

"Did you see…?" she asked.

"What?"

"How perfect you looked."

He wanted to pull her upright to worship at her feet; he could already taste her on his tongue and feel her quivering thighs against his cheek. But his body betrayed him; as he tried to drop to his knees, his balance was off, and he stumbled. Fiona half-caught him, and they tumbled together onto the floor. Michael landed on his back with a thud and a groan; Fiona landed against his bruised ribs.

Immediately, Fiona started giggling, and he couldn't help joining her—which turned out to be another mistake.

"Oh god…" he groaned again. "Everything hurts."

Fiona laughter louder. "I'm sorry," she apologized breathlessly. "It's not funny, but…"

"You've always had a lowbrow sense of humour," he teased.

She snorted again into his chest.

"I can't believe it…" she mumbled. "Those goddamn Russian idiots."

"I _know_."

"The guy in the track suit asked me ' _what you have_ ' that makes me so ' _loyal_.'"

"Ug."

"Yeah."

"Same guy started a seduction play at one point. Outlined my face with his gun and everything."

" _Ewww…_ His _breath_ was—"

" _Yeah_."

"What a bunch of assholes."

Michael smiled contentedly. He was naked on the bare floor with Fiona sprawled across the worst of his bruises. Yet somehow, he was supremely comfortable. He knew there was a reason—a good reason—he didn't sleep that way every night. But he couldn't seem to remember what it could possibly be.

* * *

Fiona breathed in time to the deep, steady rise and fall of Michael's chest.

Her lips where against the med tape holding his new bandage in place as she whispered, "Do you want to go back to bed?"

Michael didn't answer. Fiona pulled away enough to look down at him, and realized he was asleep. The early morning sun warmed his flushed cheeks, and a small, beatific smile bent the deep, beautiful pout of his lips. She swallowed hard, grateful that Michael wasn't awake to see the tears she wiped quickly from her tired eyes.

"Michael," she tried again, squeezing his good arm.

"Mmm…?"

"Do you want to go back to bed?"

"Don't know if I can get up…"

"I'll help you."

And she did.


	8. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Sam Axe pounded loudly on the bomb-warped door of Michael's loft.

"Mike? Hey Mike it's me."

There was no answer, so he pounded again, and pitched his baritone voice louder.

"Hey—Mike! If you're in there—open up!"

Finally, Sam heard the hinge creak, and was greeted by the sight of a very disheveled Michael Westen. His hair was flat on one side, and he was wearing nothing but a pair of faded blue jeans that barely clung to his narrow hips, revealing a bare torso decorated with a mass of yellow and purple bruises. Several strips of white tape were also wrapped around his chest, covering a gauze patch over his stitches that had a small burgundy stain at the centre.

"Jesus, Mike—are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Michael assured him, blinking sleepily. "C'mon in."

Sam followed Michael into the loft. His eyes went first to two crates stacked near Michael's favourite green chair, displaying a med kit, an open bottle of Jack Daniels, and a ceramic bowl filled with water and a pile of bloody rags. From there, his gaze wandered over the bed's tossed sheets, and then toward the kitchen, where he saw Fiona standing by the cabinets next to the fridge. She was wearing one of Michael's shirts, and her hair was a wild tangle. She popped open a blueberry yogurt as she greeted him.

"Morning, Sam."

"I should have guessed you were involved," Sam quipped. "The two of you really shouldn't be let out without a chaperone."

"Why?" asked Michael, heading toward the fridge to grab his own yogurt. "What happened?"

Sam's eyes widened with incredulity. "You're asking _me_?"

"Some Russian goons jumped us," Michael told him, leaning against the sink next to Fiona as he opened his yogurt. "Nobodies—wanted to take me back to Russia and sell me for parts."

"Jesus," Sam breathed.

"But Fiona stopped them."

Michael looked at Fiona as he said it, a mysterious smile dancing in his eyes as spooned yogurt into his mouth. Fiona smiled back with her lips locked around her own spoon.

"Michael humiliated them," she said, "so it was a team effort."

"Right…" Sam offered. "Well anyway, the Charger's at the impound. I ask a buddy of mine to keep an eye out."

"Thanks, Sam. I'll go get it this afternoon."

"Hate to break it to you, Mikey, but it is afternoon."

Michael frowned. "What time is it?"

"Little after one," Sam replied.

Michael and Fiona exchanged another glance.

"We have a meeting," said Michael.

"You need backup?"

Michael shook his head. "No, we're fine—it's just a new client."

"Great," Sam deadpanned. "Well, listen—I'll handle the Charger. Meet me at Carlito's later, and you can tell me all about the client—and last night's adventures."

"The family-friendly parts," he added quickly, watching Michael and Fiona exchange yet another set of mysterious looks.

"We'll be there, Sam," said Michael, his eyes still locked on Fiona's.

"Wonderful. Since you the two of you don't seem to have phones anymore, you better call me."

"We will, Sam," Michael promised.

Sam nodded, and retreated back into the sweltering Miami afternoon. As the bomb-warped door closed behind him, he smiled.

"About time," he said, to no one in particular.

He jogged down the metal stairs humming "Wouldn't it Be Nice," wondering if he had time to visit Elsa at the hotel before hitting the impound.

 **~THE END~**

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